The Front Porch Swing

[heartsizedfarm]

Sometimes mites proliferate on a hen that is already weakened with some other sickness. When I dust I just do the vent, tummy and under the wings. Need to redo it in a week.

Oh I meant to add I use a blush brush. My daughter saw me buy one in the drugstore and said, in a shocked voice. "What! I've never seen you use make up?" And I answered, "no it's to put Dri-Kill on chickens." So she laughed and said, "good that's more like the mum I know."

A blush brush works really well, dipped in a cup of dust, then brushed on vent, tucked under wings. Gets right where you want without excess flying all over the place.

 

[enola]

Wondering where Bee is.......

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Twenty Hives! I will be doing good if I get my 1 ready!! Then I have to wait and see if I can get a swarm.  The lady that is going to help me get one, says she needs 5-6 herself.  So I hope I can get in on that too! I almost have mine ready. About a couple hours more work and it should be done.  Some one gave me most of a hive and I bought 2 medium supers.  Had to clean the old one and put the wax foundation in.  Never done it before, so it took me a while to research youtube videos and then start.  Did you go help your beekeeper? Or was your tea to hot, or cold, which ever you like it, so you had to wait till it got just right?!!

I did go help my beekeeper. He was taking off the winter duvets (as he calls them), sawdust filled feed bags that give winter insulation, covered with black plastic waterproof packing bags. We store them in our barn so its a job to move all that stuff. The bees were flying. He said in a week or two when the babies set out (sorry I don't know the right terms) it will be like an explosion.
I asked him how they fared over winter and he said they were good. Some of his friends had colony collapses but his were fine. I'm glad because my neighbour farms corn and I was a bit worried about the pesticides, but there is a wooded buffer zone between neighbour and me.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Hi everyone again

So I made a coon trap. I hope it works. Also I bought 6 more chicks! 4 Polish, 1 Silkie and 1 Golden Sebrit.

Also I found out that Bob and here babies are good. I trapped her this morning. lol

Oh, Bob. She's got a crush on you.

They came and took our coon traps away ... never caught a thing in them (except Violet, who has since decided to return to the safety of GenPop), but also we did see the raccoon around after the traps were set. But on the third hand we did have that one Freedom Mutt hen hatch out the 18 chicks without incident while the traps were set, and she'd have been super easy pickings for a raccoon, so maybe our raccoons are just tourists?

Come bye to watch Chicken TV, like we're running a drive-in movie theater?

I think I'm happier now the traps are gone even though we know the raccoons aren't gone. They baited the traps with super rotten road kill type things, and that meant I had to keep the dog away from the area(s), and I think having the dog in the area is good (better than traps?) ... also I think having super rotting meat where dogs or chickens could get into it isn't so good.

 

[Blooie]

They came and took our coon traps away ... never caught a thing in them (except Violet, who has since decided to return to the safety of GenPop), but also we did see the raccoon around after the traps were set. But on the third hand we did have that one Freedom Mutt hen hatch out the 18 chicks without incident while the traps were set, and she'd have been super easy pickings for a raccoon, so maybe our raccoons are just tourists?

Come bye to watch Chicken TV, like we're running a drive-in movie theater?

and

 

[OHhappychicks]

I did go help my beekeeper. He was taking off the winter duvets (as he calls them), sawdust filled feed bags that give winter insulation, covered with black plastic waterproof packing bags. We store them in our barn so its a job to move all that stuff. The bees were flying. He said in a week or two when the babies set out (sorry I don't know the right terms) it will be like an explosion.
I asked him how they fared over winter and he said they were good. Some of his friends had colony collapses but his were fine. I'm glad because my neighbour farms corn and I was a bit worried about the pesticides, but there is a wooded buffer zone between neighbour and me.

I have so much to learn!!

I don't have my bees yet. Hoping for that swarm!!

Still working on my hive. I have 1 to repair and 1 to finish cleaning, the the painting and I think I'm done and ready.

 

[LindaB220]

They show everything EXCEPT the actual layer hens and how they are housed?

They showed about a 2 second segment of the layers eating out of the trough outside of the cages. It looked like about a 4' x 4' cage and about 3-4 chickens in each. Yeah, right. After the camera was off I bet they added back the other 5-6 in that normally stays there. Isn't it 1.5 sq ft per bird in the normal cages? Two hundred fifty thousand layers in each house. Lets see, 4 million birds laying 300 eggs a year.......That would be 1 billion, two hundred million a year. Am I right?

 

[LindaB220]

I'm from San Diego, CA. We do get sightings often enough to be wary in the scrub brush. I live in a large community. However, it is very close to unincorporated, and wild areas. The one that got our chickens was just a cub, but hungry enough to kill all the chickens and only eat 2 or 3 of them.

It was an entertaining afternoon for him, right? If mama came along they might have come after the people.

 

[LindaB220]

Morning neighbors! Blooie, that story was a hoot. Blew a few mouthfuls of saltines reading it. Glad it wasnt my tea. Reminded me of the year my aunt Donna put a bit of cowpie together in a candy box leftover from the holidays. Gave it too my daddy before Christmas but told him it needed yo be kept in the freezer til they came over christmas day. She shaped piecescand put them in paper cups. Daddy opened the box and wasnt much on sweets but loved haystacks. Daddy bout took a bite before my aunt had to stop him. It was the joke of the year.
I remembered when daddy retired from the Navy in 75, they threw him a roast party. Remember some men bringing in a big heavy box for daddy to open. We lived in Mira Mesa back when it was first built. We waited a year to see the house built and spent a year or so getting that blame soil to sprout grass. We had clay and boulders everywhere in that yard. Well daddy opened that box and inside was ROCKS, to remind him of all his hard work. Then they brought in another box acting again like it was so heavy, daddy said what now clay? They told him no this was for his hunting trips. Opened the box and it was a large replica cannon with balls! Yep they said he wouldnt miss one with that.
It reminds me of those old Roasts that Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and a bunch of oldtime comedy folks use to do back inthe early 70s.
My aunt passed away last month but she was always the family clown.
laundry calling!

What a great bunch of guys. Good memories.

 

[OHhappychicks]

Wondering where Bee is.......

Me too!!