The road less traveled...back to good health! They have lice, mites, scale mites, worms, anemia, gl

[delisha]

Good luck in the storm everyone! I am sending out chicken prayers!

I am looking forward to next Tuesday. I take all of the juvys to the butcher shop. Fresh duck and chicken, yum. I usually butcher out myself the rest of the year. Once a year I gross butcher. I am taking in over 20 birds and that is too many for me to do at the same time. The price for them to process here is so reasonable its silly for me not to take them. It is $1.75 a bird if you bring 20. I have some exceptional male meaties I wish I could keep. Great instincts for such huge young birds.I might have a few 11 or 12 pounder's this time. I really appreciate a large aware young cockerel. I keep thinking they are not grown up yet and might get bigger. I'm not sure that is good or bad and I am not keeping one to find out.I am taking in my last set of pure bred Cornish x that I bred. They have such a hard time after a year keeping up with the flock. They are predator targets and encourage predators to the flock. I hate to see them go, however, they served a purpose and I have their off spring.

Batten down your hatches!

 

[maryhysong]

Glad to hear most of you in the storms path are doing ok! Thanks Bee for the kind welcome. So many people are soooo dependant on things that they cannot control, utilities, phone, yeah, love my internet, but it can be gone in a moment and not back for a few days depending on the weather. I spent a lot of years just north of Houston in a little village; right by my house was a bad curve and right in the bad curve was a power pole which not only supplied my place, but also the village wells. Never failed, every couple months some hot shot in the rain took the curve too fast and knocked down the pole. So, no lights, no water. I used to have 50 one gallon milk jugs of water lined up along the wall of the kitchen. That way I had enough for everyone and every thing for a couple days, tho usually they had things going again in 12 hours or less. I heated with wood and cooked with gas. That was back in my real money poor days. At one time I didn't have the $5 I needed to fill the little propane tank we used for the stove and water heater during the summer. So, we had cold cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and BBQ for dinner. After dinner I filled the canners with water and stoked the BBQ pit a bit. Washed the dishes, washed the kids (all under 3 back then) and took a rag bath myself.

I don't know what people think about when they get an all electric house and have no back up anything. For them no lights means no heat, no cooking, no hot water, nothing. Not me! I have an airtight wood stove to heat with and I can cook pretty good on it too. But I do have gas for the kitchen stove and the water heater. I have a lovely big wood cookstove on layaway. Don't know if I'll be able to get it hooked up this winter (have to do a little remodel in the kitchen for it) but next year for sure. Have water tanks for the rain water; I do have a hand dug well and while the pump is electric, push come to shove I could certainly rig up something to get the water out of it if I had to. And of course I have kerosene lamps of all sorts which I don't need often but glad to have them.

The only thing I really miss when civilization comes to a screeching halt due to the weather are all my online friends and all the information in the world being right at my fingertips. But I do manage to get a little house cleaning done then. ;=) Oops I guess I was supposed to talk about chickens; I'm still figuring out how much to feed mine, but especially since I quit having a feeder of food out there, they always act like they are ravenous, even if they just ate and their crops are still full; especially the Muscovy drakes, I think they are the pigs of the bird world; ok maybe cornish x are more so, but I haven't raised any of them yet. I suppose the other thing that would bother me would be if the lights went out too long when the incubator was running. mmmm maybe I'll check into one of those antique incubators that ran on kerosene.... just in case ;-)

 

[armorfirelady]

Quote: Thats funny you mention that. I was in the coop around dinner time refilling their FF bowl. They had licked it clean & since they werent out foraging I decided to give them some more so they had full crops for bed.

When I out put the heavy plastic up I left about 3-4 inches from the ground uncovered to ensure good ventilation. The straw is damp around the edges of the run. Once this rain tapers off the run will get a good raking to move damp stuff around. If the rain can get in there the snow will as well. But on a good note the wind was not penetrating the plastic and it was draft free in the run. I'm just curious Bee & other OT's on your thoughts on putting the plastic down to bottom of run? My only concern is ventilation as the level of deep litter grows higher it would naturally block the area thats open now anyways. I only add straw once a month or so & with what I added last night there is probably 1-3 inch gap now. There is pleny of ventilation from the top. 3-4 inches from top of side and top is open lattice work with a slanted roof on top that keeps weather out of run. Do you think I should leave it as it is or put plastic to bottom? Mind you the plastic covers the lattice work & is stapled down so it doesnt flap in the wind (its rolled here because we had warm days & I didnt want the run to get to warm...(all I could think of was a greenhouse effect even with the top open under the roof)


Here is my setup. Where the plastic is rolled is as high as it goes on the sides. With it down it goes about 2-3 inches above the landscape stones on the ground. This long side faces east & the side where you can see blue tarp faces south. This is where the winds normally come from. The small piece you can see on right faces north & I dont have any plastic covering it because that little piece of red roof in bottom right corner is the doll house coop. So my thoughts were its well protected from the rain/snow. It also gets sun from sun up till noonish or so.

Since its my first winter any advice is greatly welcome please. Thank You

 

[Leahs Mom]

ETA: Whoops...meant this to be in the 10 - 20 years thread!


On the hawks -
I understand that this time of year is bad for hawks because it's migration time and things should quiet down after the migration. Does anyone know when that intense period of time ends and they have finished migration?

 

[jlynnet]

It's very windy here! My road is blocked on one end. The buses are turning around by my house. My chickens are staying inside. They know better! They're staying in the dry warm coop. Smart! I'm taking their lead and staying in too.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Thats funny you mention that. I was in the coop around dinner time refilling their FF bowl. They had licked it clean & since they werent out foraging I decided to give them some more so they had full crops for bed.

When I out put the heavy plastic up I left about 3-4 inches from the ground uncovered to ensure good ventilation. The straw is damp around the edges of the run. Once this rain tapers off the run will get a good raking to move damp stuff around. If the rain can get in there the snow will as well. But on a good note the wind was not penetrating the plastic and it was draft free in the run. I'm just curious Bee & other OT's on your thoughts on putting the plastic down to bottom of run? My only concern is ventilation as the level of deep litter grows higher it would naturally block the area thats open now anyways. I only add straw once a month or so & with what I added last night there is probably 1-3 inch gap now. There is pleny of ventilation from the top. 3-4 inches from top of side and top is open lattice work with a slanted roof on top that keeps weather out of run. Do you think I should leave it as it is or put plastic to bottom? Mind you the plastic covers the lattice work & is stapled down so it doesnt flap in the wind (its rolled here because we had warm days & I didnt want the run to get to warm...(all I could think of was a greenhouse effect even with the top open under the roof)


Here is my setup. Where the plastic is rolled is as high as it goes on the sides. With it down it goes about 2-3 inches above the landscape stones on the ground. This long side faces east & the side where you can see blue tarp faces south. This is where the winds normally come from. The small piece you can see on right faces north & I dont have any plastic covering it because that little piece of red roof in bottom right corner is the doll house coop. So my thoughts were its well protected from the rain/snow. It also gets sun from sun up till noonish or so.

Since its my first winter any advice is greatly welcome please. Thank You

Curious - where did you get the roofing panels you used...where they expensive?

 

[Sally8]

It's very windy here! My road is blocked on one end. The buses are turning around by my house. My chickens are staying inside. They know better! They're staying in the dry warm coop. Smart! I'm taking their lead and staying in too.

Now that daylight is here, all I can say is "oh my!!!!!!!" Trees down everywhere. Hubby was out all night with the fire department, clearing roads. Both coops fared very well but the one has a dog kennel fencing around one end and that is now 20 ft away and badly twisted, bent and broke. Everyone's houses.further down my road all look ok, more trees in yards. We never lost our power as so many have. Keep safe everyone, all these things are only material. BTW, my silly chickens ran right out at 5:30. They aren't any smarter today than they were yesterday. I felt so bad putting them away wet last night.

 

[Sally8]

Curious - where did you get the roofing panels you used...where they expensive?

I'm not sure if your panels are that onduline (?) or metal roofing that is fast becoming very popular here. I really like the set up. Thanks for posting pic.

 

[thedragonlady]

ETA: Whoops...meant this to be in the 10 - 20 years thread!


On the hawks -
I understand that this time of year is bad for hawks because it's migration time and things should quiet down after the migration. Does anyone know when that intense period of time ends and they have finished migration?

The Hawks get bad here from September until about Christmas. The young are looking for mates and flying on their own now, and hunting too.Things settle down as they move into new territory, and some do migrate away. An area can only support just so many raptors. Take care of your crows. They are your friends.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Hi Leahsmom - last year in our yard we had the most hawks between Sept and Jan time frame.

I have pics of a large Coopers Hawk sitting on the top of my coop during a rain storm. He came back and trapped my White Leghorn under a 6" overhang of the little coop I have. I'm sure I looked crazy running out there screeching at him. But he left and didn't come back. I think I was just fortunate I didn't loose more to the hawks. We do have a bunch of black birds around - but apparently not enough to ward off hawks.

This hawk pic was taken in Sept 2011 - he's standing on top of the end of the swingset. It was a rainy day. Back then I kept everyone inside the secured run all the time - so no opportunity to eat anyone!


This hawk pic was taken Jan 2012 on a foggy overcast day. You can see him standing above the post on the roof of the secured run. I had everyone inside the run that day and they all hunkered down under the coop.


I finally put up netting and a bigger run outside the little secured run.




But now I've been free ranging them with the gate open - I think that set up works fine during sunny days or when I can watch them. We don't have a dog anymore and DH won't get another one. Today they will spend the day inside the larger netted run since it's still pretty overcast and rainy.