The Middle Tennessee Thread

[Tracyree]

1newegg...oh my. oh my. i love your lavender babes. goodness, they are so cute. i'd love to get my hands on a few of those!

 

[cpegram]

Next spring I will have them and cuckoo marans. Lots of ee's too

 

[Tracyree]

Maybe by then I'll have my second coop

 

[HBuehler]

HappyMtn has beautiful Lav Ameraucana and she has chicks for sale

not sure about them being sexed though. I could bring them to you on Sunday if your at the meet up.She and I are good friends our kids are playing together on Friday.

 

[Troyerchicks]

1newegg - oh my those are beautiful!!

 

[cpegram]

Thanx I have some black Ameraucanas that I will be breeding with them as this is still a project color and still needs the black introduced to keep that gorgeous color

. I am so excited to get this going just waiting for them to grow out

 

[Jenski]

Tracyree, nice coop! So pretty. I did the interiors of three of my coops with foil-backed foam insulation topped with either plywood or boatmakers' veneer (for my tiny coops). Did the floors of the smaller ones in vinyl, and caulked the heck out of all the interior edges with clear exterior caulk. I have been very happy with the insulated walls in winter, but I can tell you that retro-fitting insulation once everything is already built is NO FUN.

On later coops I always did it right from the start. The vinyl floors have been great, just make sure it's not cheap, thin vinyl if you do it. I even found some at Home Depot that looked like wood for the porch of one of my coops. My BYC pages have more info than you ever wanted to know.

The other thing I would recommend is ventilation, ventilation, ventilation. I cut holes near the roof and put in closeable vent registers. In the extreme heat of summer I have even bungeed a small box fan in front of one of them to suck hot air out of the coop and push it out through the vent. Old computer fans work well for this, too, and you can directly wire them to the coop.

And for mice . . . here it is a constant battle to keep them out. My rule is "no mercy." At the first sign of them, I start the snap traps - - aggressively - - every night until they come up in the mornings empty. Fig Newtons in snap traps have worked better on mice than any other thing I have every tried, but you have to stay on it quickly and consistently or they get out of hand really quickly. Mice are vectors for so many diseases that I just cannot afford to indulge my love for animals when it comes to them.



1newegg, nice birds! What a lovely color.

Oh geez, a huge cicada just landed on my kitchen window screen. They started up that awful racket yesterday. Ahhh May in Tennessee! Gotta love it. That thick sweet smell of honeysuckle in the evenings makes up for the sweltering heat and bugs, I guess. Tonight I can sit on my patio with the honeysuckle and roses, listening to the whippoorwill and enjoying that sweet time before the 'skeeters get really bad.

Enjoy the day, folks! Looks like it will be a hot one.

 

[Raven1]

Quote:
Except for the cicada part that does sound so good. Its easy for other people to see why we love it here, just get them rockin' on the front porch with a cool glass of "something" and they never want to go home!

 

[believer01]

My 5 hop out of the coop in the mornings and immediately head for the fence and plants - patrolling for cicada's! The love 'em! This morning I plucked about a dozen from outside the pen and delivered to them....meals on flip-flops. Funny to watch: they can tell the difference between an empty shell and a live bug from many feet away.

Looks like I'm going to have to invest in a bag of Fig Newtons today!

 

[HBuehler]

We must not forget berry picking in May...that's where you will find me later this morning

before it gets hot..oh wait it's already hot

May for me is crazy..The Countdown to Crazy Week has begun...2 Birthdays in 8 days followed by a Holiday

I put the bunnies out this morning and on the cage was Mr cicada and his crew.These are the smaller red one's though not those giants we had a few years ago...We very seldom have those skeeters here even on the river,the neighbors mud pond and the pool in the back yard.Last night one of the pool hoses sprung a leak..got to fix that quick and convince the frogs to move back to the mud pond so we can have the pool back and I can quit hearing "Mom shut those frogs up" at night-the pool is outside of their window

We have several MF Cochin's in lockdown if anyone needs a supply to cure that Bantam addiction..or start one