The Front Porch Swing

[enola]

You guys need to check out this thread - Decisions, Decisions

ps. I really need to stop telling my secrets.....

 

[LindaB220]

Hello mind if I pull up a chair & sit a spell. Sounds like many of you live like we do, a little differently. My husband has been in a wheelchair for 40 yrs so nothing is normal in our house. We have 5 dogs , 4 cats, 23 chickens & 5 alpacas. Our daughter, son-in-law & 2 grand sons live with us. Guess you could say its one big party.

Hey, Aussie Gal, glad to have you. Welcome to the Porch. No, I don't think we have a normal family among us. We all have our foibles. I have 4 grandkids. One with severe ADHD boy 12 yo, a Downes Syndrome girl 13 yo, Aspergers boy 16 yo. These are grandkids I hardly ever see. I live with AJ a 20 Paranoid Schizophrenic. We keep him in a bubble and he is happy.

 

[tntchix]

Hello mind if I pull up a chair & sit a spell. Sounds like many of you live like we do, a little differently. My husband has been in a wheelchair for 40 yrs so nothing is normal in our house. We have 5 dogs , 4 cats, 23 chickens & 5 alpacas. Our daughter, son-in-law & 2 grand sons live with us. Guess you could say its one big party.

Welcome, have some blueberry lemonade and relax for a bit. Who needs normal?

 

[LindaB220]

Welcome, have some blueberry lemonade and relax for a bit. Who needs normal?

Recipe please?

 

[Blooie]

Yesterday was mayhem at Oleo Acres. Floyd and Charlie were busy with their crowing contest starting at 4:30 in the morning. After sunrise they spent the better part of the morning harassing the girls and making them scream - and still they crowed on. After they checked into their room at Freezer Camp I thought it would get quieter. I was wrong. <sigh> The remaining chickens spent the rest of the day picking on each other, screaming and clucking at full volume. Speckles, the reprieved rooster, stood around looking stupid. "Duh, where'd everybody go? Whatdo I do? Whose in charge now? Wha, wait a minute, ME?" Tossed into the mix early in the day was the loudest "egg song" in poultry history!

When we let them out last evening they spent more time quibbling than foraging. We were stunned that the biggest instigator was Daphne, the gentle little Easter Egger. She usually hung off on the sidelines, finding bugs and clover and generally minding her own business. Not last night! She was in everyone's face, flaring her hackles and flying at them with her feet extended. I took a better look at her this morning. She's always been the easy one to overlook in the flock because she was so unassuming. Hark, are those pointed feathers on her neck or does the penciling just make it seem that way? Um, is her comb looking redder and different from the other EEs? Could Daphne be a Daniel? Say it ain't so!!

It's so hard to tell when you're new to this chicken stuff. I have 5 Wyandottes that look so much alike we just call them "The Quints." I think they're all girls. I think. Three Buff Orpingtons. I think they're all girls. I think. Two Cuckoo Marans. I think they're both girls. I think. Five Easter Eggers. I thought they were all girls. I thought - Daphne might be the odd one out. Two Speckled Sussex. One's definately a boy, the other definitely a girl. And three Red Sex links, all girls obviously. You'd think by 18 weeks it would be easy to spot the roosters. You'd think.

This morning was also the first time Speckles has crowed - more or less. It was a pathetic attempt, but he crowed. Maybe he finally figured out that he was now the only identifiable rooster in the group and he'd better start acting like it. And I didn't even have to go out to the coop to know that Ida had laid an egg. I could hear her over the dishwasher, for crying out loud! I'm so glad that the others don't join in like some of yours do. I'd be deaf in the other ear!

I hope today will be a quieter day at Oleo Acres. I hope.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hello mind if I pull up a chair & sit a spell. Sounds like many of you live like we do, a little differently. My husband has been in a wheelchair for 40 yrs so nothing is normal in our house. We have 5 dogs , 4 cats, 23 chickens & 5 alpacas. Our daughter, son-in-law & 2 grand sons live with us. Guess you could say its one big party.

Welcome Aussiegal! You have quite the menagerie. Got kangaroos? They look so cool, but I bet they wreck havoc on a garden!

As previously stated, mine is a repurposed horse stall in an OLD barn. There is no floor, only dirt under the stalls. I put 1/2" hardware cloth over the floor and a foot up the walls under the horse mats when I saw an ermine by the house. I couldn't do the 'bury it out 18" to prevent digging' thing. I tried in the stall next to the one I converted and in the alley in front of the "now a coop" but the mice and voles have tunnels all over the place and they don't start digging near the wall. Their tunnels are easy enough for an ermine to follow even if it means a little digging on its own.

If I had an "external stand alone house" that was not big enough for me to walk into, I think I would place priority on having it high enough for the birds to use the space under the coop AND at a height where things in the coop would be easy for me to reach for daily maintenance, etc. My preference would always be something big enough for people to go in, then it would be ground level with proper predator barriers.


No, future biologist, zoologist, scientist.

Bruce

My coop will be either 8 or 10 x 12, so, if i allow the flock to have access under any of it, it will just be a small area that i will be able to reach under with a rake. It would definitely provide nice option for cooling off in the hot summer weather, but I don't want anyone to start laying under there, or using that space for sleeping instead of going in to roost. I have a while to think on it. Hubby is the brains with design, as he's got an extensive background in building design. I also want to check building codes to be sure that our construction plan doesn't hike our tax rate any more than necessary. ie: if i have permanent plumbing and electric, vs "temporary (in theory only) plumbing and electric". I'd love to have an open floor... bare ground to facilitate deep litter, but don't think that will be an option given our building site. And a solid floor will be an asset if sometime down the road the building gets repurposed into a tool or work shed.

Welcome, have some blueberry lemonade and relax for a bit. Who needs normal?

Normal is just a setting on the washer.

Recipe please?

Ditto.

 

[enola]

Blooie, all of those are classic signs of the pecking order being sorted out, ALL OVER AGAIN!

And you may be right, you may have a Daniel on your hands!

Pictures would help us figure it out for you......

 

[Blooie]

Blooie, all of those are classic signs of the pecking order being sorted out, ALL OVER AGAIN!

And you may be right, you may have a Daniel on your hands!

Pictures would help us figure it out for you......

Yeah, I figured that upsetting the established balance out there would result in pecking order chaos. I just didn't expect so much of it. Wonder about chicken sense sometimes. It's not like I changed the number of girls, but they are sure going at each other. Not as bad today, but I'm sitting here in the kitchen and I can hear them outside. I'll get some shots of Daphne in a little bit. It would be nice to know.

I'm making potato salad for Ken and me for supper tonight, and guess what? I'm using my very own teesy little backyard eggs! Well, it's a small potato salad for two, so small eggs will be just about right.

What makes that a big deal? Well, I confess to still being a bit, um, weird about eating backyard eggs this fresh. But by golly if she's gonna provide them then I'm gonna use them.

 

[enola]

If I have a slack time in egg laying, I don't buy eggs. I am sorry, store bought eggs do not taste like eggs.

So, I hatch at least 6 pullets every spring so they will lay all winter.

 

[perchie.girl]

Yesterday was mayhem at Oleo Acres. Floyd and Charlie were busy with their crowing contest starting at 4:30 in the morning. After sunrise they spent the better part of the morning harassing the girls and making them scream - and still they crowed on. After they checked into their room at Freezer Camp I thought it would get quieter. I was wrong. <sigh> The remaining chickens spent the rest of the day picking on each other, screaming and clucking at full volume. Speckles, the reprieved rooster, stood around looking stupid. "Duh, where'd everybody go? Whatdo I do? Whose in charge now? Wha, wait a minute, ME?" Tossed into the mix early in the day was the loudest "egg song" in poultry history!

When we let them out last evening they spent more time quibbling than foraging. We were stunned that the biggest instigator was Daphne, the gentle little Easter Egger. She usually hung off on the sidelines, finding bugs and clover and generally minding her own business. Not last night! She was in everyone's face, flaring her hackles and flying at them with her feet extended. I took a better look at her this morning. She's always been the easy one to overlook in the flock because she was so unassuming. Hark, are those pointed feathers on her neck or does the penciling just make it seem that way? Um, is her comb looking redder and different from the other EEs? Could Daphne be a Daniel? Say it ain't so!!

It's so hard to tell when you're new to this chicken stuff. I have 5 Wyandottes that look so much alike we just call them "The Quints." I think they're all girls. I think. Three Buff Orpingtons. I think they're all girls. I think. Two Cuckoo Marans. I think they're both girls. I think. Five Easter Eggers. I thought they were all girls. I thought - Daphne might be the odd one out. Two Speckled Sussex. One's definately a boy, the other definitely a girl. And three Red Sex links, all girls obviously. You'd think by 18 weeks it would be easy to spot the roosters. You'd think.

This morning was also the first time Speckles has crowed - more or less. It was a pathetic attempt, but he crowed. Maybe he finally figured out that he was now the only identifiable rooster in the group and he'd better start acting like it. And I didn't even have to go out to the coop to know that Ida had laid an egg. I could hear her over the dishwasher, for crying out loud! I'm so glad that the others don't join in like some of yours do. I'd be deaf in the other ear!

I hope today will be a quieter day at Oleo Acres. I hope.

You changed the pecking order by removing roos thats all. It will settle down once everyone knows their place. I found my three amigos kept the flock pretty much in line. Even if they did harass each other occasionally. Waylin Willie and Bubba were a great Roo Crew. Bubba was low man for at least a year before he found his Doodle doo.

deb