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

[stonykill]

thanks Miss Lydia. They really look good to me. Monday morning I found them each 1/2 covered with blood, no exageration , and really walking around like zombies. They were not only shaken up from the attack but were walking around their drake, who was dead.

I completely cleaned out the coop the day the attack happened to remove all blood soaked shavings. There was a lot of blood. I'll re deep litter it Saturday morning and the Runners and the Pekins will all live there together.

 

[stonykill]

IF??? That happens here, so no ifs about it all. And we do the same thing we always do and take the same measures each year we always have. Nothing special and nothing everyone shouldn't be doing at their own house....be prepared.

Al wants to have a little session on the OT about preparing for taking care of livestock in the event of power outtages and what the OTs have in place for just general preparation. We could do a little spitballin' over here too, if you guys like?

You all can tell me what you already have in place and any methods you have in place that circumvents potential or actual problems with grid failure...and then I can tell you how I do it too.

All joking aside..it's a real issue out here in the country and soon could be a real issue to you folks in the city and burbs. Look at how unprepared the citizens of NY were for Hurricane Sandy...and even New Orleans. Time to look around you at the world and increase in natural disasters and weather pattern changes and realize it has increased and will only do more of the same.

My wife and I live waiting for it to happen. I said in 2001 that terrorists at some point in the future will take out the grid, at least part of it. Our place isn't quite a homestead, but it is getting closer. We don't need electricity to be ok. That reminds me, I need to buy more ammo....

 

[Mountain Momma]

I live 1 mile from the coastal headland. Thanksgiving week we had hurricane force winds, and the power was out for 3 days (this is a mini power loss event in our location). Normally, when the power goes out, it can be out for a week or more. It does every year.
My only real lament is no woodstove and a coop too small for being able to leave everyone in for days at a time, should those kinds of winds continue (or some other disastery reason to keep them cooped. I could move them all to the garage which is larger in the event of a prolonged indoor stay, if absolutely necessary).
We always have a supply of human food (all of which the animals could eat. They would be thrilled actually.) We live near several natural (boilable) water sources.
Our problem is never snow. We live at sea level and for it to snow here is a rare and shortlived event. It is high winds, driving rain and flooding (tho not on my hill).
I keep candles and lamps and wicks and oil, in stock, always. The stove is gas, so the burners work, even when the electric start oven does not.
We don't have heat without power, but have a 5k watt generator for the fridge and a small space heater. We just blanket-off the living room and live in there.
We're no doomsday preppers, but we do live in a place where power, water and fuel can be interrupted in the blink of an eye, and for an undetermined period.
I like feeling secure in what I have, and have the faith to believe for whatever else we might need.
Still putting that woodstove vibe out into the universe every time I think about it. But for now, I am grateful for my current contingencies.

lol. We get electric outages all the time and in summer too. Usually trees fall on lines. We have been snowed in for days before when it snows 5 or 6 feet. Sounds incredible huh? I have some of the same issues that you do, my coop is too small for more than a day of keeping it closed either that or my chickens are too spoiled . Once we got 12 feet of snow in 2 days. This will be our first year with a snowblower. DH is very happy about that. Found it at a garage sale for 5 bucks, a Toro. We have a wood fireplace upstairs and a gas one on the main level. The gas is what we use most of the time anyway. Our oven is gas too and our grill is hooked up to the gas lines. We are serious eaters at this house...there will be hot food. We have a close neighbor with a spring and we also catch rain water on two corners of the house. Our house has a two story open area with floor to ceiling windows on the south side. Normally during the day without heat it gets too warm because of the passive solar. We have snow shoes and sleds and a gas station about a mile or two away so we could haul out if we needed to. I hope to be a dooms day prepper. lol. I think I need to stock pile beans though and I havent figured that out yet. This summer they were working on our water lines and we had no water for three days. We had filled up the bath tubs to use to flush toilets and had buckets of water in the kitchen. We got a little grungy but survived it. One tip I heard about dooms daypreppers I thought was a winner...mop buckets with rollers. If you are ever off the grid so long you need to do laundry this is the tip I heard, use the mop bucket with rollers. We have solar lights around the house, motion lights and iol lamps and candles too. A couple years ago the electric was off for most of the weekend. It happened when I was at work. DH called me to bring candles and supplies. I got lamp oil, apple juice etc...He met me at the end of our road because my Jeep Rubicon (@#$%^*)would not make it up the hill to the house. He brought the sled and we hiked in with all that stuff. Well it was all out on the counter and DH fixed himself a tall glass of .....took a big swig of.....yes, lamp oil. He thought it was apple juice. I laughed pretty hard and he got pretty mad so I went ahead and called poison control. They asked me how he was feeling now and I said....mad and embarrassed. lol. So that night we ate dinner with a table full of candles and kept telling DH not to burp.

 

[colburg]

Al wants to have a little session on the OT about preparing for taking care of livestock in the event of power outtages and what the OTs have in place for just general preparation. We could do a little spitballin' over here too, if you guys like?

You all can tell me what you already have in place and any methods you have in place that circumvents potential or actual problems with grid failure...and then I can tell you how I do it too.

All joking aside..it's a real issue out here in the country and soon could be a real issue to you folks in the city and burbs. Look at how unprepared the citizens of NY were for Hurricane Sandy...and even New Orleans. Time to look around you at the world and increase in natural disasters and weather pattern changes and realize it has increased and will only do more of the same.

I have about 500lbs of food for them, try not to let it get under 250. Mix of Grains, Layer, Pecans. Also have 3 acres of pasture and 15 acre orchard that is planted with clover, alfalfa, rye, orchardgrass, bromegrass...and weeds, don't forget the weeds.

There's also 1 extra bottle of ACV in the corner, just in case.

Our biggest fear isn't loss of power, actually nothing I do or use for chickens uses power...except county water. It's pumped up with several wells. WATER is the biggie. We have a small well but the water quality is questionable at best. Had a water sample done, still trying to interpret it. Normal drinking water is allowed about 400ppm sodium, this area has up to 2,000ppm and I've heard about 4,000ppm water. I have to use extra acid in the irrigation water to help leach the salts down so they don't build up in the root zone. I'd have to include a Big Berkey or equivalent + solar power for pump to survive long here. The Pecos River is about 3/4 mile away though. The chickens oughta be able to drink that OK if I bucketed it up here.

Lookin forward to other solutions

 

[Rachel'sFlock]

The sun came out, this afternoon and the flock got a lovely preen in the slanting winter light. They were so happy!
I looked out the window a little while ago, and there was Penelope, all alone, foraging far from the flock, just begging me to cull her. Before a predator does.
Bee, you are so right about the watching. They do tell you when they are the one volunteering to be culled. I won't be waiting for Spring to do her. She'll go when the teenage boys go.

 

[IttyBiddyRedHen]

Our problem out here in SC is not usually snow. Ours is heat and lack of rain. However, in the summer, when we have fresh rain in the rain barrels, I use it for the chicken waterers. And we usually keep 100# of feed on hand, as well as scratch and BOSS. I don't think anyone here will starve.

 

[stonykill]

the most important thing any poultry or fowl owner can do is observe.

 

[texasmomma]

I'd have to include a Big Berkey or equivalent + solar power for pump to survive long here.

We have a Royal Berkey. I think that's the one. It works great. Only thing is that it needs new filters now and again. We use city water for inside the house and well water for outside. But, the well is run on electricity. We need to figure a way to use the well water if we didn't have the city water available, in addition to the loss of electricity.

Things changed around here after we flooded. We don't have the nice stuff we used to have, not because it wouldn't be nice to have, but because we just don't need them. I do want a wood stove, and plan to get one of those at some point, when funds are around and my husband can find the time to install it. Not sure how it will work through the roof. When the house was re-roofed, they just put the metal over the old roof.

I keep a lot of food in the freezer and need to do more dehydrating and canning so that we have a supply of food around in case of emergency. We weren't able to stay in the house the last time it flooded, but if we have less water in the house, should it happen again, we would probably stay, so I need to be prepared to be more self-sufficient in the house.

 

[Beekissed]

Our biggest fear isn't loss of power, actually nothing I do or use for chickens uses power...except county water. It's pumped up with several wells. WATER is the biggie.

Lookin forward to other solutions

What is your biggest fear? And you are right...in the winter, keeping water to the stock without electric to draw it up with is a big concern. Sometimes it's not a snow storm that takes out the grid, but huge ice storms with high winds.

Like this one that was so beautiful in the aftermath but took out transformers all over the area. This is the melt down but you can see all the trees were encased in ice and that road took awhile to melt off. Utility trucks had a hard time repairing all the damage due to the extreme icy roads.

The sun came out, this afternoon and the flock got a lovely preen in the slanting winter light. They were so happy!
I looked out the window a little while ago, and there was Penelope, all alone, foraging far from the flock, just begging me to cull her. Before a predator does.
Bee, you are so right about the watching. They do tell you when they are the one volunteering to be culled. I won't be waiting for Spring to do her. She'll go when the teenage boys go.

You're right. Flock management on purpose is my mantra...do everything with a purpose~breed selection, housing, ranging, feeding, health management. Chicken TV is fine as long as you are really watching for the subliminal message of the show.. and not just too busy laughing at the punch lines.

 

[Melabella]

Time to look around you at the world and increase in natural disasters and weather pattern changes and realize it has increased and will only do more of the same.