so I guess it wouldn't be a time to talk about how much I live Butter milk.....the lumpier and chunkier the better for me.
deb
Woo Hoo I kept my first Wellie egg till it completely dehydrated.... It was a teeny little thing about half the size of a big bird egg. If you crack it open it may not have a yolk. Till they get the egg train working on schedual sometimes the yolk doesnt get added in yet.We got an e-egg, we got an e-egg! Very first one. It was still warm when I found it in the nest box. I'm so excited! It's not very big, as you can see in the picture of it next to the wooden egg we put in to encourage using the boxes, but it's our firstest one ever!!
I'm dying to do just that, but I promised Katie that I'd call her as soon as we got the first one. Wouldn't you know it? She's at day camp until three today. So I just set it aside until she gets home so she can see it. In the meantime I have to head to Powell....not using layer food yet because out of the 22 chickens one tiny little egg doesn't justify it, but I am going to pick up some calcium/oyster shells. I still have over half a bag of grower that I need to use up yet. BTW, Ida (my little laying queen) is 18 weeks old, so that's pretty good!
Woooo! Blooie!! And it's pretty color to boot! Congrats!!We got an e-egg, we got an e-egg! Very first one. It was still warm when I found it in the nest box. I'm so excited! It's not very big, as you can see in the picture of it next to the wooden egg we put in to encourage using the boxes, but it's our firstest one ever!!
Bruce, even given all of that, the skill and craftsmanship that went into the original building of that barn would be hard to duplicate at almost any cost!
That is why we re-did the house piece by piece (not knowing in the beginning that it would be a total gut) instead of ripping it down. Could have saved some money by just stripping the frame bare from the get go. I have this emotional hang up about the people who cut the trees by hand, dragged them to the house site (probably oxen) then hand hewed logs 35' long for ridge poles, sills (none could be saved) and top plates. Hand cut mortises in the beams for the joists - trees flatted on one side, tenons made with an adz. I saved as much as I could for future use. Unfortunately I came in one day to see the guys finishing up chainsawing the floor joists in the first floor in half for easy removal. They WERE ~20 long, now they are ~10 with a tenon on only one end.
It would be cheaper to build a brand new timber frame barn than to restore the existing ones. The wood they used in the "new" house was surprisingly cheap considering. The beams came pre flatted on 4 sides, the joists as tree trunks of varying diameter (as they were in the original). No 35' long pieces though, the mill can make nothing longer than 20' I think so they had to splice 2 together for each of the long sills. They have massive circular saws for cutting to length, use chain saws instead of broad axes to flat and even have a little tiny chainsaw in a mount for making mortises, finished the old fashioned way with a huge chisel instead of doing it ALL with a chisel. Probably several hours per mortise. They did finish the tenons with an adz. There would/will be more work to take all the novelty and original siding off, support everything and carefully pull it apart to replace pieces than to make all new wood and put it together.
Any chicken would be proud to have an 8x10 timber framed coop, except you'd need a different name for it - maybe call it the Timbercooplodge or something equally pretentious! You know what they say, "an ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure."
Hadn't heard that before but it is SO true! Time to get out the TALL boots when the pretension gets deep
and no chicken talk, unless I was the one doing the talking!
Maybe there will be a few new chicken "farmers" among that group!
Here's what happened today.
Well, you all know how much rain everyone has been getting lately. Yesterday, I went by everyone and made sure no one got wet and that the bedding was okay. I made the mistake of trusting dry hay to mean safe. That was my first mistake.
This morning everyone was fine, but when I went out this afternoon, one of my bunnies was dead. I tried to figure out what it was that could have caused it, but I couldn't see anything that really stood out other than some slightly red irritation on his leg. There were some ants on him, but I figured that was because he had died. Bugs always come out to eat when something dies. Not wanting to leave the bunny there, I used an old leash and tied his legs so I could carry him out. I got a couple ant bites either way.
I couldn't bury him (our good shovel is in need of repair) or justify putting him in the field in the back because he's a decently sized bunny, so I decided to cremate in our Mexican chimney. I got to work on that and made sure the fire was going strong before going back out to move the remaining bunny, ducklings, the quail and the two chicks that had been in the same coop.
Two ducklings were dead. It was literally less than an hour that had passed and these otherwise healthy birds were already stiff with ants all over them. Instantly I knew what had happened. With all the rain, all these ants were drawn up to the surface and of course they would go to where there is food. Chick starter, bunnies and ducklings were on the menu, apparently. I was so freaked out that I instantly grabbed as many animals as I could in my arms and hauled them off to the large coop. I even moved the broody hens that had been above the rabbits/ducklings/chicks and moved them out to the large coop. I also decided to dispose of the ducklings in the same way.
All the animals that had died were heavy and were very clearly healthy. The ducklings had been running around just fine before and the rabbit had been fine this morning.
Normally, hatching chicks is much easier going with only some concerns, mostly concerning large predators and chicks getting lost in the field and never coming back. This year, it's been a lot of little hidden issues that have been popping up. Ants, weakness, chicks literally being trampled by the larger birds! I don't get it! I've never had these problems before and I'm thinking that this is obviously showing my naivete and greenness when it comes to raising chickens.
I can't even tell the local chicken group because I've already been given heat for raising my birds as though they are chickens and not pets. Someone made a comment about how I am negligent just because I let the chicks out to free range with the flock. I mean, obviously I would never do this to hatchery chicks unless I had a mother hen to watch them. The chicks I let out to range are always accompanied by their mother hens. Duh! But apparently, it's a big no-no to allow nature to take its course. Unfortunately, nature hasn't been very forgiving lately. That's why I'm already planning to make those brooders out of old wooden boxes. If I can help out these chickies before they have to go out and learn how to make it outside, then I will. However, these are barnyard mixes. I'm not raising show quality birds that need to be kept clean/perfect. Some of these people don't really get that, I think.
Well, that's it. I'm still watching over the fire to make sure I have everything properly cremated and not just cooked. I'd hate to find my dogs eating something out of the chimney later. I'm exhausted. Why did I say I wanted to raise all these birds again?
Oh yeah. 'Cause the satisfaction of seeing full-grown birds grazing all over the yard is greater than the sadness I feel when I lose a bird. Ugh. I'm such a sap.
We got an e-egg, we got an e-egg! Very first one. It was still warm when I found it in the nest box. I'm so excited! It's not very big, as you can see in the picture of it next to the wooden egg we put in to encourage using the boxes, but it's our firstest one ever!!
Mmm! Both of my grandmas showed me how to drink buttermilk. We had a tall, cold glass with salt sprinkled in. Then they would crisp up some corn tortillas, roll them up, and we'd eat them with the buttermilk. Delicious!
Everyone thinks it is fire ants, but it wasn't at all! I thought so too until I saw the black ants. They were bigger than normal, though. We haven't had issues with fire ants in the backyard in ages, there is too much greenery. No, these were big black ants that I've seen around here before. My entire foot was swollen several weeks back when about 3 of these ants bit me. I don't know what they are exactly, but they are a menace.
