The Front Porch Swing

[getreal]

Quote: that one is soooo cute. looks like a penguin.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Yeah.

Oh okay that sound cool! I might just have to try that out.

Well you shoot it I guess.
lol

NOW you tell me!

The thought of shooting anything makes me feel faint, and my father looks like he's going to puke when we talk about "culling" birds or even "processing" them, so we have a Designated Knife Man here, and it is other people who deal with the deer on the Agricultural Hunting Permits. But I tell you, when I saw that raccoon sitting outside the dormitory of my coop, calmly licking his lips, and then Dad saw it, too, we were both talking about whacking it with a shovel ...

Death By Shovel is pretty far up the scale of Difficult Animal Dispatch Methods.

All it takes is sufficient motivation.

 

[LindaB220]

This is a rotten photo ... taken in low light with moving targets ... but there is one of the Freedom Mutts I think is painfully cute. He has a white face/body and black back. He is the Blackest/Whitest chick I've ever seen, and when he turns toward you that white face looks huge a cuddly. It's the one looking at the hen.



Meanwhile, over in the Delaware coop, we have a few more chicks hatching. This won't be a great hatch, and I already found one squashed (dead), but I'm just trying to hatch out as many Delawares as possible right now, and anything helps with that.

This photo was taken yesterday, I think there were only 5 living chicks total, and there were still unhatched eggs. I hope more have hatched. I think we started with about 8 eggs each, so this hatch really isn't great.



There had been some excitement in the early morning with a couple of the older chicks getting into this broody cage, and one of the hens was quite upset, so that might have been when the one fresh chick got squashed. Then in the afternoon, some of the older chicks got out of the run. We found 3 right away (PEEP PEEP PEEP) and put them back with their hen, but 4 were missing for a while, and strangely quiet. We thought for sure they were gone forever. They were hiding in the tall grass and eventually came back up to the fence so I could see them (and acted like I was trying to murder them when I was catching them). These kinds of things are why I'm so impressed with the Freedom Mutts.

Tell me about the Freedom mutts.

 

[chickenboy190]

NOW you tell me!

The thought of shooting anything makes me feel faint, and my father looks like he's going to puke when we talk about "culling" birds or even "processing" them, so we have a Designated Knife Man here, and it is other people who deal with the deer on the Agricultural Hunting Permits. But I tell you, when I saw that raccoon sitting outside the dormitory of my coop, calmly licking his lips, and then Dad saw it, too, we were both talking about whacking it with a shovel ...

Death By Shovel is pretty far up the scale of Difficult Animal Dispatch Methods.

All it takes is sufficient motivation.

lol Ah okay I see then.

Yeah once there were like these 2 coons and they had rabies or something and my dad had a shovel and they got it.

 

[chickenboy190]

This has been a good year for trapping blue jays. lol So far I have caught 3 in my live trap.

 

[TexasLisa]

Hello

So right now I have 2 broody hens! Which is cool but I don't have a roo -_- So I put some duck eggs under them. Hopefully they will hatch.

Also my trap I made worked!!

Congratulations on the coon.

Lisa

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Tell me about the Freedom mutts.

About a day after the first 10 Delaware chicks hatched ... and getting those to hatch required SO much fussing with special cages, and feed and water and keeping things tidy and keeping the broodies in the cages and the other birds out of the cages and gathering appropriate hatching eggs and on and on and on and on so Dad and I were wondering "is this worth it?" ... Gust started insisting I come and look at a particular bush between the chicken pasture and the back porch (Gust does a great Lassie impersonation). Then I heard what sounded like growling coming from that direction. This was super early in the morning, I had just let Gust out for his first pee before breakfast, and I always stand on the back porch while he pees ...

I went in and told Dad I thought I heard growling in a specific bush and asked if there was a raccoon trap there. He said no, so I asked him to come and listen to see if I was hearing things right (I've got "issues" that make my hearing go funny sometimes) ... Nope, he couldn't hear growling. Then I heard peeping.

So I went down to the bush ... Gust was very happy I'd finally gotten the hint. I frustrate him because I'm slow. And we immediately saw a hen with chicks.

We counted ... this hen had 17 chicks running around under the lilac bushes.

I knew right where to check for her nest, and I looked under the bush Gust had been trying to tell me about, and there was one egg left in there and a LOT of egg shells.

That hen, who was hatched here last year and is a cross-breed mutt from our hatchery birds ... she had brooded that HUGE clutch under that bush, without protection or food or water, and meanwhile RACCOONS! At the end of that first day we caught them and the hen and put her in a broody cage inside the coop for a few days so we could get her "trained" to keep them inside at night. The chicks are amazingly active and thriving. They are maturing at about double the speed of the Delawares that hatched at about the same time. I call them the Freedom Mutts.

I think I posted this before. It is a video I took of this hen with her chicks that first day (May 2, I think) I titled it "Silly Human! Chicks are for hens!" It's not great because I didn't want to get too close and freak her out and I was using my iPhone.

 

[chickenboy190]

Congratulations on the coon.

Lisa

Thanks! I caught another one this morning. It was stealing some chicken food.

 

[LindaB220]

Thanks! I caught another one this morning. It was stealing some chicken food.

Chickenboy, what do you do with them? My handyman catches all sorts of things, wild boar, coon possum. And he eats them. I know there is a way to get the wild taste out of boar by soaking in heavily salted water (iced) and draining and starting over for 6 days. All hearsay on my part.

 

[perchie.girl]

Yesterday was 97 and I was sweating rivers. During the night the wind began to blow which means dust storms so youcant opsn windows. Its 82 today with breezes and feels much better but still humid. In Colorado we had everything, im so glad I dont have that anymore. Im taller than the palms so unless it hits my car im good. Last year during the heavy spring rains they got a freak storm. My son went out to pray at the mosque across the street. A man from Syria was coming down the narrow street we live on and palms fell blocking his way. He started to back up and a palm fell hitting the front of his car. My son ran to help him get the frightened kids from the car and into the mosque. They waited out the storm and men helped remove the tree from his car. I was laughing telling the kids Mother Nature was making us feel at home here. Im about 10 minutes walking to the sea and tomorrow my daughter turns 21. Going to try to go down to the sea and spend some time, last year we got a sandstorm. She was like Mom why is it I can never have birthdays outside? Rain, snow, tornadoes, now sand! Keep safe all.

Problem solving hat on here:

First a short story.

When we lived in Las Vegas we had huge Sandstorms a couple of times per year. The sand would come in under the bottom of the kitchen door and make miniature sand dunes on the floor. Mom used a damp towel rolled up to cover the bottom of the door.

I was in second grade there so when the sand storms blew in you could sit and hear the sand particles hit our papers.... tick tick tick tick .... all over the room. when that started happening they sent us kids home. I had a half a block to walk home.... school was at the end of the street. By the time I got home My mouth would have a dirt ring around it and I would have to wash my hair. The wind would blow so hard I had to lean into it to keep standing up.

We had AC in Las Vegas.... Standard buildings even the cheepo ones had them. 110-115 degree summers were the norm.

But Our cars didnt have AC.... So when we traveled we would hang wet towels over an open window IN the back seat area. It worked. Is there a way you could do something like that to allow the air through but stop the dust? Believe me I would rather live with the dust than be locked in a room with no air circulation.

Also Thin Muslin or a even a layer of 50 percent shade cloth draped over an open window would stop most of the particles and let them precipitate to the floor. Believe me I know this type of sand..... It is as fine as talc and gets into EVERYTHING. If you could put a damp towel on the floor so when it precipitates down It will stick and can be removed to be shaken out outside.

By the way some of our strategies in the desert during 1963, I am sure you know them This is also for others who wonder how to survive in very very hot desert climates.

1 Cover south facing windows with tinfoil. Just damp water and tinfoil squeegied on.... Tinfoil will stay till you remove it.
3 Air flow is important
4 Do Work things at night when its cooler
5 Swamp coolers are cheap and Work. But you have to have the windows open in the room you want cool
6 Wear Cotton and cover up..... Water evaporation in the form of sweat is a natural air conditioner.
7 Leafy green veggies are a natural supplier of electrolytes
8 Keep hydrated

I have other strategies but have to go
deb