The Old Folks Home

[ChickenCanoe]

I like planting a lot of different things too.
This year's tomatoes will be:
Heirlooms
Giant Belgium
Oaxacan Jewel
Amana Orange
Amish Paste
Aunt Ruby's German Giant
Beefsteak
Black Krim
Cherokee Purple
Garden Peach
German Johnson
Vintage Wine
White Beauty

Hybrid
Scarlet Red

Bell peppers
Chocolate Beauty
Golden California Wonder

Hot chilis
Long Red Cayenne
Serrano
Poblano
Habanero
Tam Jalapeno

also Green Tomatillos

Trouble is, the yard, garden and chicken runs are pretty much a big lake right now. It doesn't look like anything terrestrial plants can grow in.

 

[Pozees]

Poblanos are the best.

Here it's hot and dry and I can usually grow a mean hot pepper. Never tried Tomatillos though, are they similar to tomatoes to grow?

Nice varieties everyone is planting this year!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Tomatillos grow in similar conditions. They're the best as a base for salsa.

ETA
Wow, the sun just came out. Let me go slosh around and work chickens. Maybe even get some potatoes planted before the next storm.

 

[Wisher1000]

Wisher, does the Easter Egg plant grow well in other zones or just the South? It's kind of neat looking!

I don't really know, this is the first time I've tried them, but from my research I would think you could grow them - especially if you can grow tomatoes and eggplant - they are a member of the nightshade family.

Quote:
Me, too! I always tr to throw something unusual in the garden, if for no other reason, to have something to point out to people I drag out to look at my gardens.

You know...there would be a million of us chickeners that would just HAVE to have these simply based on fruit shape ...torment us all into giving them a go...hee hee. Green thumbs or naught...I often refer to myself as the "village idiot gardener" where things do often LIVE despite me.

Do make sure and remember to post us some pics. You know we are gonna love them.

Tara

I read one review where someone was growing some in Canada! You can order seeds at many places, but if you (ANY of you) want, I will save some seeds from mine, that is assuming I have good luck with them. I don't think they are hard to grow, on the contary, I think they are VERY easy to grow but need to be dusted to discourage spider mites and aphids. I can do that to have a perfect "crazy-chicken-lady" plant!

I like planting a lot of different things too.
This year's tomatoes will be:
Heirlooms
Giant Belgium
Oaxacan Jewel
Amana Orange
Amish Paste
Aunt Ruby's German Giant
Beefsteak
Black Krim
Cherokee Purple
Garden Peach
German Johnson
Vintage Wine
White Beauty

Hybrid
Scarlet Red

Bell peppers
Chocolate Beauty
Golden California Wonder

Hot chilis
Long Red Cayenne
Serrano
Poblano
Habanero
Tam Jalapeno

also Green Tomatillos

Awesome list, but I don't see any cukes or cantalope. Yeah, I forgot to mention the cantalope and watermelons.........Oh, and the corn............

 

[CanuckBock]

There are some breeds that are more resistant to Mareks but not many and not the breeds I want. If breeding to resistance was effective then all birds would be resistant - the bugs have been around a long time and resistance would have occurred in all the heritage breeds by now. The vaccines that are "causing" all these weak birds are a lot more recent. I would love to see data on effective breeding for resistance.

I vaccinate myself and my kids. I vaccinate all my animals as well.

I think what you are doing is WAY stellar...I personally would hate to have to vaccinate; 'cause I am lazy, 'cause I don't want huge one time hatches--dribbles, love daily hatches!, 'cause so far for us, breeding for disease resistance is working. If we ever get too high a death rate, why sure, we better rethink out the master plan, eh!

I push my poultry...to past many boundaries. I could be labelled CRUEL for allowing my young stocks to be exposed early and often... with the attitude, DIE ALREADY! If you are gonna succumb, do it early and spare me the long drawn out inevitable of your immanent passing! I try hard not to get attached to any chicks here that are not gender matured as in females laying eggs and males crowing about it. Marek's Disease will sweep in and end lives when stressed and becoming sexually mature is stressful. We lose more females than males when the onset of laying occurs. Female birds must be more compromised during first egg laying cycle than when the males mature out.


Tough love...love in short supply...Tara the TERRIBLE...yes...that would be me. That kindergarten girl was wrong...I am MEAN and I am OLD!

My bantam Chantecler project, F3 generation...all produced from winter chicks.

Creative Poultry Breeding, page 38 & 39, Dr. Clive Carefoot:

This winter, I have natural hatched all the project Chant bantams and lost none. I have not culled any yet either as none thus far have shown me any "cullable" traits.


We were "given" Marek's...I had wanted them FOREVER and had ordered and waited two years for a breeder to finally acquire some Mille de Fleur Booted Bantams...she was getting completely out of chickens and I was offered up her breeders. Yee Haw!

We arrived at a meet place and she had a surprise for me (watch those surprises...not always good ones!)...an extra hen. Said the hen had been stepped on and her leg was bad, not broken but not working and you could see it was extended forward...so the breeder GAVE me this sick hen...simply saying, "We know Tara will take good care of this bird and nurse it back to health!" Rightey oh...oh NO!

I fed this hen, hand fed it food and water, three times a day. Prayed and held, coddled and hovered over her...well sure she lived...she lived and spread Marek's thru out our entire property!

It was the syactic (spelling?) nerve expression of Marek's Disease (lots of expressions of it--from eye balls to internal signs). I nursed this hen and around her, other chickens started to up and kick! Two other Booteds we got started to extend a leg and I know I never stepped on any legs! I got right excited when a Booted just died with no symptoms. Then the exhibition white Silkies (I am talking 15 years ago now, not that money means more than a life but at $100 a pop for them--that was a steal of a price back then--they were the kind that are so typey you cannot visually tell which are the males and the females...agh!) began to drop and much later on, the entire pen of make a fist sized perfectly laced Sebrights died. Indeed, we had a huge and growing problem. Was at first not ready to admit I had blundered...that a gifted sick hen was the culprit and I had unwittenly invited death and destruction IN. The good lessons are the hard ones...yeh, watch me do the head leaves body magic trick if anyone EVER tried gifting me a sick animal now!

Yeh...so I said to Rick (when the one Booted died) after hauling all my poultry health books out and puzzling...WAY WAY too many things that sounded the same....so the discussion concluded that we were going to have to dump some serious money and jump serious hurdles to nail down what this was exactly...what it was for sure!

So make the appointment, the two hour drive to my vet, one live Silkie (laugh, all the vet techs got hauled in to see Tara' funny fuzz ball) and one fresh still warm but DEAD Silkie...so my vet ships off the carcass to the pathologist. Got to bring the live specimen home but we did lose all of the poof balls and tiny laced soldiers.

Hundreds of dollars later (testing in Canada sucks...a pullorum test in the States is what fifty cents...we pay fifty DOLLARS for the same test...OPP test in the States for ruminants is like $8...it costs me $250 even if I haul the sheep TO the vet clinic...yeh...). Hundreds of dollars later, we had verification that it was Marek's Disease. I talk to the vet about strategies...thinking I should buy a small dry ice holder, get some vaccine and do long term storage, begin to think about how to change how I hatch...do huge hatches, once a month so I can vaccinate...bank and store up hatching eggs, no more natural hatches...have to buy an incubator because all we do is natural hatch (this was all prior to 2007, when we bought the incubator).

Whoa Nelly...my vet advises me that at first, we could expect 85% death rates to Marek's (no Silkies or Sebrights; pretty much 100% death to MD--Sebrights are hen feathered in both genders and it took Sir Sebright 25 years of IN breeding to set this in the breed...very related AND I think the kind of webless feathers is why I wonder on maybe that the Silkies are so prone to a dander distributed disease? But who knows!). So what do we have to lose...even with vaccinations, there is no sure thing that Marek's Disease is covered. Lots vaccinate and STILL lose birds to Marek's plus there are new kinds developing!

So discussions with Rick are why not try for disease resistance first. First year, lose about ten to fifteen percent of the hatched chicks. Keep in mind, we have no other diseases in play here, so for the very young and the very old, they are the ones to succumb to MD. Past the normal seven percent death rate expected in hatched chicks...10 to 15% is a little high for normal, so you can presume it is increased due to Marek's. What lives, that will be what you breed from. Seems a sane plan I can do.

Here is some more Carefoot on the subject of sickies...

Dr. Carefoot, page 178-179:
Of noteworthy attentions in the following next quote...the bolded area in my opinion is Oz's objective...to cross in the local birds and therefore create stocks that are naturally immune and discontinue the use of the currently MUCH necessary medications/vaccinations. In the meantime, a dead bird is no breeding prospect WHATSOEVER...it is dead and only use may be meant for the BQ! You need alive birds and then work on a breeding program to MAKE resilient ones. Oz is fortunate to have access to local stocks that are thriving. Awesome and we will all follow his progress on baited breaths.

Dr. Carefoot, page 40 $ 41: The author has never been successful in curing a single bird from a major ailment to such an extent that the cured bird was fit for the breeding pen. He regards the treatment of poultry for illnesses as a complete waste of time and money. He was, however, successful in eliminating the effect of coccidiosis on his stock in the days when untreated chick food was available, by breeding from healthy survivors in small numbers in large pens.

...

To conclude, the aim of the breeder is to develop a healthy strain able to survive on clean water and standard available foods when provided with ample dry, ventilated, draughtproof accommodation, without the need for any added drugs whatsoever.

I personally feed ampro in chick and turkey starter BUT never medications to waterfowl! I am not out to prove how great I am at beating things when Ampro will allow young stocks the fortitude to survive and prosper. This is my take on a problem I never want to wintess.

There is something IN me that hates facing evil! EVIL is like a silent sentry---it stands there in the shadows, waiting for you to be weak, to waiver and then it POUNCES! Death and destruction when you get complacent...why can't I order up a dozen hatching eggs in every colour under the rainbow...fill the bator to brimming with anything and everything...because while Marek's is not transferrable in hatching eggs...chronic respiratory disease IS! CRD is a stress disease, not going to rear its head until the bird stresses...be it approaching maturity, or weather changes, pen changes, any kind of stress and it can surface...or not! Birds that should put on weight don't, birds that should lay Jumbo eggs all thru winter, don't, cockerels that should weight nine pounds in five months aren't. Production is harmed, chickens just don't seem to thrive and be healthy. An often silent horrific not sure it is there disease, until stress shows up (can't avoid that completely) and then the sniffles, the coughs, the oozes crop up...yuck!

To me EVIL is what is anything that takes my precious innocent critters away...makes them suffer and makes them die. Sweet innocent lil' bock a bocks...hurt MY precious...now that is EVIL! So when you vaccinate and jump thru hoops, you do that because EVERY single DAY, that evil might visit. That is having to face the EVIL and win against it. We have to be adults about it, the tough love and the knowing if you jump up and down on the bed, stats say far too many kids break their necks...so no jumping on the bed in our house (yes CC, no dancing better than Elaine on the bed springs...gonna collapse!).

Rick loves to feed wild birds...we still do that. There are just SOME things I am not going to do to ensure 100% biosecurity. One item to our favour is that our wild populations of birds don't seem to have brought us any grief...not yet. We do live in the middle of no where BUT birds migrate to populated places and areas that may have poultry, pick up sickness that way to bring it here. That is one evil we are willing to allow to happen. Each to their own set of values and rules. Who do I have to answer to besides my vet who tells me NO SHOWING...well Rick and I. I am accountable to the birds, Rick, my vet and myself.

The biosecure protocols can be painful...in your FACE you do this to avoid the EVIL--I mean, why do I have to Lysol the tires and bag my shoes and strip my clothes and wash my hair in a bath...all that because I just had to go visit some chickener friends that meet at the local auctions--even that, don't go to auctions now for several years...e-mail and phone, to keep contact, it works...not sitting in a coop with a chicken in our hands going over the finer points but far FAR less likely to make the birds ill. Problem is no matter HOW much you want that one person to swing on by and visit that ONE day...the other 364 days in the year (leap year?) you spend with the birds. Is one day of supposed fun worth an entire year compromised. But it was just the one day???

I dunna wanna be good all the time...walk the line and dance the dance all the time...can't I be bad and like unprotected unions...throw caution to the wind? Nope, because the ONE time you choose not to be careful, that you just walk thru the bird yard with your TOWN shoes on...that will be the time you lay down something for a bird to wander by and pick up.

Think I was Clark Kent in drag...I change clothes here and do laundry repeatedly...on a work day the regiment is virtually hilarious; chore clothes, bus clothes, chore clothes, bus clothes (can be the morning ones), chore clothes...if we go to town AFTER my evening chores (to pick up grocery), then another change of clothes to town clothes because, well my silly bus t-shirts don't always fly in town and heavens, caught dead outside the yard in chore clothes could be criminally revealing! Hee hee hee...

I betcha we all got some real good CHORE clothes out there we all could get charged with public vagrancy in! You l00k like a city BUM in your getup! Never mind the "oh my eyes" in the poor animals!

I do remember once going to a function where we had to be all washed up and presentable--wedding or some such function...I had gotten distracted and forgotten to close up the sheep ewe barn. So while Rick warmed up the truck, I put on chore shoes and ran down the pasture. Well holey moley, what a stir. The sheep eye balls were huge and all had their sniffies going and Puella the llama was just beside herself..."WHO IS THAT??" Lucky I never got spit on!--Everyone's a critique!

"That's not her...she smells too nice and look at her get up...not her--too clean to be our caretaker!"

You know how I am going to die (yes, I already know how it will end for me)...sticking my hand in one of the multiple heated water buckets we have here going 9 months of the year. Why do I stick my hand in the water? Well besides wearing coke (nif) bottle thick glasses, I can't always make out if the water is fluid. Each water bucket is checked on twice a day; morning and evening chore routine. Birds die quickly without water. So we sorta kinda count on the electrical water buckets to work but we don't. I will one day stick my hand in a bucket that has some how got current in the water and zap me heart dead...that's how I figure I will die. In the meantime, do the math...for each bucket we use, that's twice a day dip...365 x 2 = 730 dips per year per bucket and I wonder why I use up so much hand cream trying to keep my skin from cracking and bleeding. LOL And to make it worse, finally after ten years, I found one of the buckets had quit...nice, more encouragement to keep checking simply because you just never know what day they will up and stop working.

I don't mind telling my story of the EVIL side of having poultry. Far too often the newbies all show up and post my chickens are doing such and such and by then, it is over...their land is contaminated, their coop is full of infection and being the life of the party and breaking the bad news to them...that is not going to be MY job.

Three monkey syndrome...EVIL...why do I have to start the newbies inquiries out with, "So where did you acquire the birds? What did you investigate about diseases and parasites in fowls?" Why do we have them pregnant carrying a baby with AIDS? Sorta far too late now...need to abort, move to new place and research before you start over properly this time?? OR keep the baby and deal with the horror...because you never bothered to investigate the pros and cons. Pros are great...why we have birds but in anything...what can go wrong and what are the bad things I should know about.

Ugly thing...you can all laugh, when or if I get a new beast (like a lovely water buffalo perhaps??)...the first question I ask, "How do I kill it?" Yeh, humanely put down the thing I am new to. If that comes as a shock, it should. Because right as rain, I need to know how to mercy kill the very thing I acquire, quickly and efficiently should I have to. To me, that is the worst case scenario. Death.

You get one opportunity to be a virgin, to have virgin soil, facilities and a CLEAN situation to have birds in.

While I only myself keep exhibition heritage stocks now...I am advocate for hatchery stocks from companies that run biosecure facilities...you can start out cheap, start out seeing if you even like chicken chores, what breed and variety you may prefer. BEFORE you invest and risk bringing home something to contaminate your place by going to an auction or having a dozen hatching eggs shipped cross country from a place you never even know how it is run. When you bring home the wrong animals/birds, that's it. I can rant about OPP in sheep and foot rot and keds/lice...because I too have barred my gates and put up the offensives, practise quarantine and laugh uproariously at me trimming sheep and goat toes and putting four juice cans down with foot rot mixtures in them to KILL hoof rot before it gets in my dirt...to stop all the nasty EVIL that wants to infect my flocks and herds.

We all want to have fun in our hobbies, but a big part of fun as an adult is protection from EVIL. There is no welcome mat at the gates...there is a mean hairy scary red dog growling and me backing her up with a pitchfork. GO AWAY! Leave me and mine alone in our sanctuary of dreams...heaven resides here but only because Lucifer and his minions have been told under no circumstances are you welcome here, so bugger off.

The right to "my kind" of FUN comes at a price. So we have people like Oz doing the due diligence, the blood, sweat and tears, the precautionary investment of a great defense. Hats off to Oz for knowing when to walk quietly and carry a very big stick. For when to bring out the big guns and when to not. For having the sense to look EVIL in the eye and make judgement calls. Nothing cast in stone, we are all managing within our tolerances.

The most criminal thing is the comment, "I did not know!" because it ruins a wonderful experience; it hurts, it don't have to happen and it is plain simple EVIL!

Rick has always said, wise hero of mine...the easiest part is getting the animals. And I have to agree.

Some of the fun should be the getting educated about all the things that can and do go wrong; yer homework that in theory, does NOT have to happen and experienced to learn from. The diseases/parasites and the predator attacks...part of the fun of this hobby needs to be the planning BEFORE a chicken foot ever crosses your threshold. Like getting a cute puppy on the spur of the moment...never had a dog, you are going to ramp up your learning curve quickly and pay for your hurry hurry with money you may not want to part with. Saddest part though...the animal pays for our incompetence. I do rescue and seen far too many animals let down by well meaning persons. Sigh.

That saying, here's a thought from the Bellamy Bros..."Lord, help me be the man my dog thinks I am"

Quote:
Yes, we all should be scholarly and prepared...for the arrival of our first time chooks. Like a long wait for a good thing...earned and ready. I figure we appreciate what we work hard to acquire.

Now to fully turn on my own stance and say something completely opposite...not an easy call here! Because, yeh I also embrace those who throw cautions to the winds...buy at auctions, order in hatching eggs for any ol' source, bring home birds from multiple sources, who cares where! Good on you too... and I MEAN THAT! Have fun, run the risk and may nothing bad every come visit. I am envious in a very nice way. Love to do that. Live life on the edge and take risks. What fun, but no griping if you get bit. I have a saying myself... "If you are willing to do the time, go ahead and do the crime." What a fun way to hobby it out. Get birds and never mind with all the precautions! Carry along and if nothing bad happens, excellent. If things start mysteriously dropping dead, no worries, buy more to replace. It is not sinful to be this way either. I mean, there are commercial chooks that live a mere, what 47 days and are processed for consumption. We eat chickens...they are a food source; so not all of them live a long time. I have production Rouens, normally eaten at 16 weeks, and I have some that are approaching that age in years, not weeks.

Only thing I ask, if the bird is suffering with something and you cannot cure the illness or stop that pain, put it out of its misery please. There is enough misery in the world that we humans should not add to the suffering but adding only to the JOY.

Past that, out and about having fun.

Not all of us signed up for due diligence and having a dozen chickens in the yard...if it was up to Rick...that is what he would be satisfied with. No, he would probably still pursue a healthy source--he can't handle death so well, but silly yard birds of mixed origins are a really very satisfying way to enjoy this hobby too. The more simple approach, that is all good too. One of our longer lived hens was a mutt Buff Orpington we called Nine-Oh (she could run...man alive...brush tunnels where she came from...running from the 'yotes!) ...no idea how many places she was at before she graced our own lives but sometimes those disease challenged chickens are really surprisingly STRONG.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Edit: Fix transcription errors in quotes and typo on #'s...

 

[bamadude]

I like planting a lot of different things too.
This year's tomatoes will be:
Heirlooms
Giant Belgium
Oaxacan Jewel
Amana Orange
Amish Paste
Aunt Ruby's German Giant
Beefsteak
Black Krim
Cherokee Purple
Garden Peach
German Johnson
Vintage Wine
White Beauty

Hybrid
Scarlet Red

Bell peppers
Chocolate Beauty
Golden California Wonder

Hot chilis
Long Red Cayenne
Serrano
Poblano
Habanero
Tam Jalapeno

also Green Tomatillos

Trouble is, the yard, garden and chicken runs are pretty much a big lake right now. It doesn't look like anything terrestrial plants can grow in.

nice list of heirlooms. I planted black krims last year and we loved em. My 4 yr old would eat them like apples. They look pretty cool too. Also had yellow pear tomatoes. They are small like a cherry tomatoe but adds alot of color to salads. Nothing like fresh homegrown veggies

 

[bamadude]

Chickcanoe are u any type of medication? Lol

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I ...
Awesome list, but I don't see any cukes or cantalope. Yeah, I forgot to mention the cantalope and watermelons.........Oh, and the corn............

That's just tomatoes and peppers/chilies
Others to follow.

nice list of heirlooms. I planted black krims last year and we loved em. My 4 yr old would eat them like apples. They look pretty cool too. Also had yellow pear tomatoes. They are small like a cherry tomatoe but adds alot of color to salads. Nothing like fresh homegrown veggies

I eat them like apples too. Nothing better in a St. Louis summer.

Chickcanoe are u any type of medication? Lol

Never been on a medication in my well over 60 years. Nor has my wife or kids.

I went to my dad's house once and he had a little dressing table in his bedroom that was literally covered with medicine bottles.
I said, "Dad, why don't you dispose of all these pills you're not using."
He said, "I take all of them."
I said, "I think it's time you found a new doctor."
He said, "Oh no, my doctor is wonderful".
He was dead 5 months later.

 

[bamadude]

That's just tomatoes and peppers/chilies
Others to follow.
I eat them like apples too. Nothing better in a St. Louis summer.

Never been on a medication in my well over 60 years. Nor has my wife or kids.

I went to my dad's house once and he had a little dressing table in his bedroom that was literally covered with medicine bottles.
I said, "Dad, why don't you dispose of all these pills you're not using."
He said, "I take all of them."
I said, "I think it's time you found a new doctor."
He said, "Oh no, my doctor is wonderful".
He was dead 5 months later.

i was joking because or ur rant on the evils of chickendom. Sorry about ur dad tho. Wasnt trying to hit a nerve. I dont take any meds either. I had to take oxycontin 80mg four times daily for 2 years. I told my pain management dr i wanted to get off of it. It tookalmost a yr and a half to wean me off and withdrawal symptoms were still terrible.

 

[CanuckBock]

Chickcanoe are u any type of medication? Lol

I'd like to be...there are times where the excuse "Gettin' older!" just sounds lame...far better to be able to reply, "Better up the meds or down the meds" or just have ANY excuse past yer aged goods.

Now for a much better laughing interlude...

About jokes:
You are old when:

Joke:
Tara