The ups & downs of novice chicken owners.

[KnobbyOaks]

My husband, a true West Texas boy, always called them toad floaters. He and his dad had many, many funny sayings. The one that always cracked me up was, "Happy as a dead pig in the sunshine." What kind of person even first came up with that one?

 

[roohugger]

i have so enjoyed reading the content of this site! Can anybody please explain why my gorgeous lavender pekin rooster and my white silkie hen have had black chicks? I'm shocked!!

 

[Briezeechicks]

Brie,

Hello I just found this thread and have not been able to stop reading. I am enjoying myself so much. I know you from the OT thread and I am so happy you've branched out on your own to give a bit of a different perspective. Sometimes when you've been doing something a very long time, you forget what is was like to be just starting out. So I want you to know how much I appreciate what you have to say. And...you have such a talent for writing. Makes me feel like when I read Little House On the Praire. I just love your family. Sounds like you have really good kids, so you must be a wonderful mom. I'll be following along and learning with you.

I try very hard to be a proper custodian to our animals, and a proper parent to our children. That's a learning experience too! My "mother" couldn't see anything past her next "fix." When she left me at K-mart when I was 5 and it took 3 days for the cops to find her, well, that's the kind of "parental example" I had. Foster care wasn't much better, either. Only good thing I can say about that is that if I was "home," I got something to eat. Might be a peanut butter sandwich, but it still beats nothing! I don't ever want my children to wonder if their bellies are going to be filled, where their parents are, and most importantly, wonder if they are loved. I probably go to far the other way on that one, but better that than what I had. Thank God for people like my M-I-L who rescued people as well as animals!

Aint nothing like highschool football. College ball... eh... can leave it. Highschool football now... That's different. The whole town is involved. Its a family... BIG family, the way a small town gathers for football. Heck, people with no kids at all go to the highschool games. LOL. Hope you have a good time!

You got that right. I personally hate football. But I abhor violence in any manner, and it just seems so violent to me. At least they aren't as bad to make kids play hurt these days. When I was in school, they had "team doctors" who would inject knees, or whatever was hurt, with xylocain so the kids didn't feel pain, and would play on an injury. How ludicrous is that? A knee has to support a body for many many years. Not just the duration of a football game!

We have come in for some hot stew I left cooking this morning. It quit raining about 4:00 this morning, but the weather is quite cool, and stew and cornbread will hit the spot!. In just half a day, the chain link fencing is up on the Dominecker Domicile. I don't very often envy anyone anything, but I do envy a man his muscles! He made it look so easy!

We will move everybody but Sipsy (the setting hen - who is steadfast to her task, by the way) this afternoon. Bryan found the brooder heater hanging from the roof of the hay barn. He will get it down, and if it doesn't work, he said he could re-wire it or put new fixtures in it. It is about 4' square (looks like a metal pyramid), made of galvanized metal, and has receptacles for 4 light bulbs. He says that you hang it just above the floor and the chicks can get under the lights for warmth, but can get away from it too. And it is big enough for EVERYBODY! We will lock the chicks in the coop for a day or two, and then open the little door to the outside (not exactly a "pop" door as it has to be manually opened and closed). They'll think they've been set free! We will keep them in the covered run until they are all fully feathered out, and get some more size on them.

They are beginning to look really ugly now, feathers here, down there, and walking around, most of them, on stilts. A couple of them are already growing combs...I hope those are my BO rooster and my Cochin Rooster (who is NOT growing blue feathers!). And there is something in this bunch that looks suspiciously like a frizzle! It's feathers are coming in curly - and white! There was a couple of extras in the box - for warmth I guess - and I am hoping that is how it got in there. If my layers turn out to be frizzles, I'm gonna be upset. The Buff Leghorns and the Buff Orpingtons, for the most part, are actually growing "buff-ish" colored feathers. The black Australorps are definitely black. The Blue Cochins are white and not very big. I certainly hope they didn't send me bantams! But as big as the ones I saw at the show were, I think they should be bigger. The info I've read on them, tho, said they are slow to mature. I hope this is the case.

Well, cornbread's done, and I'm starving, so, until next time,

Brie

 

[Briezeechicks]

i have so enjoyed reading the content of this site! Can anybody please explain why my gorgeous lavender pekin rooster and my white silkie hen have had black chicks? I'm shocked!!

Like Forrest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're going to get!" And so it is with chickens, I guess. I've got a few in this batch of chicks that I'm not sure of either....they certainly aren't what I ordered!

Brie

 

[galanie]

We have come in for some hot stew I left cooking this morning.

Well, cornbread's done, and I'm starving, so, until next time,

Brie

haha I have half a nice roast now you have me hungry for stew and cornbread. At least I have some potatoes and stuff to put in there this time!

 

[galefrances]

Sometimes, as in your case and mine, we learn things the hard way in life. I'm not sure why it needed to be that way, but at least some of us come out of it going in the right direction.

 

[Briezeechicks]

"That which does not kill you, makes you strong!" Indeed!

Brie

 

[Briezeechicks]

haha I have half a nice roast now you have me hungry for stew and cornbread. At least I have some potatoes and stuff to put in there this time!

Mmmmmmm! Potatoes, carrots, celery, a little onion. Maybe a few peas? Yeah!

 

[NovaAman]

I read the book... Forrest Gump that is... Nothing like the movie.... Momma did not say that in the book... Heck, don't read the book and wait for anything from the movie to pop up. They are so very different. VERY VERY DIFFERENT. Lol, immensely entertaining though.

 

[Briezeechicks]

I read the book... Forrest Gump that is... Nothing like the movie.... Momma did not say that in the book... Heck, don't read the book and wait for anything from the movie to pop up. They are so very different. VERY VERY DIFFERENT. Lol, immensely entertaining though.

I know what you mean...I read the book that "Out of Africa" was derived from...how they got that movie, good as it was, out of that book is beyond me!
Don't get me wrong. The book was wonderful, but nothing like the movie! Poetic license?

Kids are sleeping in this morning, and I am letting them. Bryan has run out to feed everything. I'm supposed to be sleeping in as well, but my routine is to get up early. It's hard to beat your internal clock. Ha! Oh! I hear faint stirrings at the back of the house...guess they'll want breakfast. Later!

Brie