The Middle Tennessee Thread

[CityGirlintheCountry]

I forgot to add- I am getting ready to list the 13 week olds on Craigslist. I thought I'd offer them to y'all first. There are three barred EE males, the blue EE pullet pictured previously, a black EE pullet, two redstar pullets and three barred rock pullets. PM me if you are interested.

 

[Tracyree]

Hmm, you all have me considering sand.

Citygirl, I imagine a watering system would make it a lot easier. I can't seem to keep anything alive out there right now.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Multi hose timer, rotating sprinkler heads on 5' conduit pipe, carefully directed spray patterns= flowers that actually live

I have to replace random parts each summer (mainly because I leave it out all winter). In the end though it is cheaper than buying new flowers each year. The front flower garden is on two different hoses and the veggie garden is on one. They alternate times and days so everything gets a little water. I just have to water the hanging baskets and we are good.

The timer means that I can get things watered at about 6am without having to be out there doing it myself.

 

[HBuehler]

don't tempt me on the solid blue ee pullet...I'm cutting back on my numbers but don't have a solid blue in the EE pens now..lost my blue lady over the winter.Mother Nature has been my enemy this year

 

[believer01]

I like the idea of a watering system. Maybe I could add that to the budget sometime in the future! CityGirl, I've seen the pics of your flowers and I can see why you'd want to keep them alive, they're lovely.

Tracyree, I want your carpenter! Somebody done good! That's the kinda person you want to feed fried chicken and banana pudding to. Oops, are we allowed to say fried chicken on here?

Another good thing about the sand is it makes it easy to see the poops. By paying attention to who's where when I close the door at night I can pretty well know who "did" which in the morning. And I can see at a glance if somethings not right. Its also good at cleaning their feet.

I am so discouraged right now .... got a dog and a cat with major skin problems (tried natural things and vet stuff and nothings really helping). And 2 chickens still with the squirts. We feed natural/organic foods, well water (which we also drink with no ill effects) not city water, no chemicals, little stress. Aaarrggh! I have 2 friends who basically throw food out in the yard for their animals and never have a vet bill or problem.

Had to pull out a bunch of cucumber and squash plants yesterday - some sort of wilt! And this was going to be the year I put up dozens of ferments!

Sorry, rant over.

Time to start watering. 'Fore it gets hot! Yeppers .... going .... out ..... side...............

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Quote:
You know you want her... come on... just one won't hurt you... everybody's doing it...

There is another one in the latest hatch (4 weeks old). It's a lighter blue than the one I posted pics of. She's pretty sweet too.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Believer- I'm sorry your pets are having skin issues. It stinks when our pets are sick. When I was a kid we had a little dog that was allergic to everything. The poor dog would scratch all her fur off. She would just be nekkid.

We finally started giving her steroid shots to give her some peace. She was just miserable (and allergic to everything on the planet, including grass

).

The watering system has been added to over the years. The most expensive part is the timer. After burning through some cheap ones I finally went with the $40 one. It works great. If it were up to me to do the watering it would never get done at all so the system is a blessing.

The roofing guys showed up unexpectedly this morning around 6am. I was rudely awoken by the dogs going insane. I thought they just wanted to go bark at imaginary things. Imagine my surprise when I looked out and saw men walking around my chicken coops! I threw some clothes on and dashed out the door to protect my chickies (perhaps not the smartest thing to do, but you know). Turns out it was the roofing guys here to start ripping the old one off. Sigh. My one morning this week that I could sleep in and we are up at 6am.

Around 7am the roofing ocmpany called to tell me that the roofers would be out today.

Oh well... it will be nice to get the roof on and I do need to go plant some things. Guess I can do it now while it is cool outside.

Have a lovely day all. I have a swim meet this afternoon. You might think of me sweltering out in the sun while I cheer on the children.

 

[HBuehler]

Now,I don't need 2 for sure...just like a variety in my ee pen....and to think I sold so many solid blue EE because I couldn't tell them from my blue Ameraucana's and ended up loosing my one hen that I kept

 

[EconMan]

CityGirl - So far so good. I had to toss the Cochin egg...it never really developed. The rest of the eggs look good. I've only candled all them once around day 8 or so. I candled random eggs every so often. Probably Wednesday night I will candle them all because they should hatch sometime around Saturday. It will be early next week before I get pics up, but I'll make sure to get some up. So the current count on eggs is 12...5 BBS Marans, 5 EEs, 2 Ameraucanas.

Quick question for others: Is it ok for the broody hens comb to fade out? Do I need to give her anything? Thanks!

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Econman- it sounds like you should have a good hatch. That's exciting! Is your son getting excited too? I can't wait to hear what he thinks of the chicks coming out. (FYI- they come out kind of slimey and ooky.

)
My understanding of hen comb color is that it fades when they are not laying. Mine get really pale when they are molting especially and over the winter when they lay off. I haven't really paid attention to my broodies, but it makes sense that your buff would pale out while sitting and raising chicks. I think it's normal. I'll go out and see what all of mine look like and we can maybe see from there.

Holly- let me know if you want this larger darker EE. I'll start listing them on Craigslist tomorrow. I need to clear that pen! You know how it goes.