The Front Porch Swing

[LeslieDJoyce]

Woke up pre dawn today and heard all the chickens screaming. I went out there in my pjs and flip flops ... saw a raccoon sitting right outside the dorm room of the coop staring at my birds through the hardware cloth. I had to practically stick my face in his to see what it was (besides a lump where there aren't supposed to be any lumps), and I saw the mask. I yelled at him, clapped my hands, told him to get out of here ... literally just barely out of arms reach of him ... he didn't flinch. I walked through the coop but didn't see a thing unusual except over 100 screaming & panicking chickens. But then I barely see well enough to see when there's lots of light ... The raccoon seemed to be gone when I came out of the coop.

Before today something has gotten at least one duck by reaching through the wire fence of their area at night.

Time to get some traps, I think.

 

[Triple Willow]

@Leslie... coons is really tasty! He will be back so preheat your oven. LOL I sure am glad he couldn't get in!! Sorry about the duck. I nearly stepped on a possum one night while out seeing what the dogs were having a fit over.

 

[Triple Willow]

Ours is much, much bigger.... that one looks like a chicken coop compared to ours! This is sort of what it looks like but bigger....much bigger...and with scads of comfy furniture and tables loaded down with all sorts of heavenly edibles.

Ohhhh and on a beach! (big huge sigh)

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

@Leslie... coons is really tasty! He will be back so preheat your oven. LOL I sure am glad he couldn't get in!! Sorry about the duck. I nearly stepped on a possum one night while out seeing what the dogs were having a fit over.

I floated the idea of cooking raccoon ... just got one of those looks. That's probably best as my refrigerator is SO full of turkey right now. Got the second-biggest pot on the stove making broth. The biggest pot is hot-tub size for scalding turkeys, so I'm using the smaller pot this time.

 

[lindz8504]

I just had my first ever incubator hatch.... I set 33 eggs. 3 were clears from the first candle, but I left them until the next. At lock-down we saw development and movement in all the eggs, with a couple that were dark and we weren't sure, so we left them in. 10 chicks hatched- one died because yolk hadn't been absorbed, so 9 healthy chicks. 2 pipped, but never zipped. The rest did nothing.
Egg-topsied this morning because the incubator was starting to smell funky. Out of 19 eggs left, 1 quit pretty early-you could see development, but not a formed chick. 1- quit early, but had a nearly formed chick, but it was small. The rest had fully formed chicks, several were malpositioned, 2-3 had pipped internally, but MOST had a LOT of fluid. So I am thinking that humidity was too high sometime during lock-down. What do you all think? I didn't take pictures because it was only me doing it, and I couldn't do both. Not sure what I am going to do next round.... I have 2 dozen Salmon Faverolles eggs coming around the 21st.... I don't want to screw up that hatch, because the eggs aren't exactly cheap! So...for those of you that incubate regularly.... What did I do wrong?


I put eggs in the turner fat end up. Did NOT add any water, and humidity stayed between 16-25%, temp stayed 99* (therm. just did whole degrees...) I candled at day 7, 14, 18. I "twisted" the eggs in the turner once every day or two so they were turned more than one way. At lockdown I dropped temp down to 97* and bumped humidity up to 60%.... It did get up to 74% at one point when all the chicks started hatching.... I'm thinking that may have been the problem....



Ok, I know this reads kinda funny since you all know what is going on... but I'm going to copy and paste into the incubation thread. I'm lazy this morning, and only wanted to type it once....

 

[LBejaran]

G'morning, y'all! I have loads of stuff to do today. I need to fumigate my bedroom, but in order to do that, I need to remove all the clothes and fabric in there. In order to do that, I need to be able to hang clothes to dry outside. I need more clothesline. Dad knows how to put it up right, but to do it, he requires a favor. He says I need to do it today, but he won't tell me what I need to do!

Gah! All my chores are put off until he tells me what I need to do. I'm so frustrated with him. I do tons of favors for him all the time and never ask for anything in return and he can't even tell me what the dang chore is. I don't mind doing it, but fumigating will take hours. I need to wash all that stuff now to make sure they don't have fleas on them (hence the fumigating).

And then I think I'm gonna make a cake or something. Lemon meringue pie sounds good too if I can get my hands on some lemons. So many eggs, so little time!

 

[jmoeller]

Well, we tried to beat the weather...didn't make it. We still have 3 "arches" to cover with chicken wire and all of the hardware cloth to get done. Then we want to put up "baseboards" (1 x 12s all around the inner perimeter) to help keep at least some of the sand in the run! But it was getting so cold and windy we just couldn't work anymore. We had no sooner put all the tools and rolls of wire away when we saw the first snowflakes - and the wind picked up so much that we were dodging tree branches running back into the house. But I think it's looking pretty good! The girls (and Charlie) won't know what to do with so much space!


!
In their temporary pen while we worked on the new one.


I think it's going to work out nicely!


Walking back to the front....there's an entire mountain range hiding behind those snow clouds, and check out the lantern - it's a wrought iron lantern with sand in it - we always fill them with sand in the winter so they don't pack with snow and blow around so badly. I know, we could just take them down and store them until summer, but they make a fun wind gauge!

Deb, the news about your goat is fantastic! I got chills! Nice job on the turkey, Leslie! I have never in my life even learned to properly cut up a chicken! If you were to take the pieces I cut off and try to put them back together to form a whole chicken, you'd be pulling your hair out! Nothing would fit back together!

Blooie I love your idea for the run. I was talking to my husband about doing the same thing. I have a question though. Do I understand that you still need to cover the with mesh or chicken wire? We live in Wi. in the country so I'm worried about racoons mostly, but we do have fox, wolves, dogs, and bears in the neighborhood. I'm trying to find an economical way to build it. I'm excited that a lot of our coop is reused material from an old trailer house my cousin is ripping down.
Also, the pix of your granddaughter from the other day is great. It's all about finding what motivates someone to become successful. She is beautiful.
jen

 

[perchie.girl]

GOOD MORNING YA'LL!!

Lindz, I love your pictures. You really need to name the one chick 'Preacher'.

Blooie, you have a beautiful place and a beautiful daughter!

Lisa

If it were a Roo you could name it Elmer.... for Elmer Gantry....

deb

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Out of curiosity, I just weighed the cooked breast meat from that turkey. Boneless, mostly skinless, cooked weight at over 10 lbs.

(It could be moister, which would make it weigh more, but even the meat from the inside of the breast tastes great!)

 

[LindaB220]

Morning all, great day in La. Hope your's is too. Last night I gave my babies a treat. They have only had fermented chick starter for 3 wks. I mushed up a handfull of boiled chicken, peeled green grapes and egg whites. When I put the plate down they rushed up. Stopped dead. Looked at it. Looked at me. One of my bigger golden comet's decided to have a little peck. Then another. When the rest came forward to share she threw her leg up to stop them from getting to the treat. They would sneak in a peck and run like crazy. She didn't get much more because she was running around trying to keep them away. I laughed so hard. I just love my babies so much. A lot of joy in that brooder. It's about 7 ft long and they run and fly constantly. Happy, happy babies.