Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Duck Drover]

let us know how well that works, I considered something like that to stop free feeding the rats. nasty things, would a rat be heavy enough to open it?

I am not sure the actual weight required to open it but I suppose it could be adjusted if necessary. A rat would not be heavy enough to open this one, though. I showed my husband a picture of one and he was able to design this from the picture without any plans. He made me this strawberry planter last year the same way. I showed him a picture of a table top planter and he made this one for my strawberry plants.

 

[Totalcolour]

Rain and stuff. Bad Day yesterday. Lost power and naturally, the incubator stopped. So, had the get the garage door opened and the generator out and around to the side of the house (still with neck in brace and not quite healed shoulder). Then had to figure out how to switch the power over, and get the 'bator working.

Texted Himself to help me. Sent him pics from the phone since I didn't understand the panel on the 'bator. Problem was, no signal in basement, so had to keep running outside, up onto the deck and into house to get a signal to send text, wait for an answer, then back down to try out the response. Got soaked and it all took over an hour.

Hope the eggs will be okay.
This morning there were some mallards in the pond. Two males got out ran ran around fighting. Guess two boys and one girls isn't a good match. We get a pair every year, but this time there were the three; perhaps one lost a mate and was trying to steal the other one's duck.

 

[CarolynF]

Rain and stuff. Bad Day yesterday. Lost power and naturally, the incubator stopped. So, had the get the garage door opened and the generator out and around to the side of the house (still with neck in brace and not quite healed shoulder). Then had to figure out how to switch the power over, and get the 'bator working.

Texted Himself to help me. Sent him pics from the phone since I didn't understand the panel on the 'bator. Problem was, no signal in basement, so had to keep running outside, up onto the deck and into house to get a signal to send text, wait for an answer, then back down to try out the response. Got soaked and it all took over an hour.

Hope the eggs will be okay.
This morning there were some mallards in the pond. Two males got out ran ran around fighting. Guess two boys and one girls isn't a good match. We get a pair every year, but this time there were the three; perhaps one lost a mate and was trying to steal the other one's duck.

Dang! That was NOT a good day! But the up side is you made it thru. I hope you've had a chance to get a really big laugh out of it SOMEhow! We were lucky, our neighborhood remained intact and not even too much rain. It was really blustery and several times we had bright sun while it rained which is always kind of fun and interesting.

My Barnie is the only girl laying right now, and she only lays every other day. Good think she's here! Can't figure out why my EE stopped. It's been about 3 weeks now. Sheesh, just because I changed their feed, her best buddy went bye bye, I brought in 3 Littles, gave them a larger nest box, and the weather was hot.... what's her issue? Right?

 

[CarolynF]

Quote:
Oh... I LOVE your strawberry planter! It looks like it's big enough to produce a lot of berries? Do you remember how many plants you put in there? How often do you have to water it?

 

[CarolynF]

Hi everyone!
I'm in Redmond, and I'm very new to chickens (though lots of animal experience... dogs, cats, and horses, mostly). I've been reading and planning for six months or so, and finally brought home 4 pullets two weeks ago. They are 8 weeks old now. My new coop is being delivered tomorrow; I'm excited! I was going to convert our shed to a coop, but my husband vetoed at the last minute, so I had to scramble to find a coop. I'm hopeful the transition to the coop will go well! I've been using a covered giant wire dog crate until now.

Anyways, just wanted to say hi!

Hi there and Welcome!

I can imagine how anxious you are to get those girls outside. There's way too much cleaning to do when they're little. And they are certainly old enough to go outdoors now. It really should be an easy transition. You might want to keep them inside the coop for 1 or 2 days so they "bond" with their new home. And you might have to herd them inside at dusk for a couple of days until they get the hang of it. Do they have a perch in their kennel, now? Learning to sleep on the perch in their new coop might take a little encouragement, too. But it's kind of fun teaching them.

What breeds are your pullets?

Enjoy!

 

[mikeyb]

 

[RedReiner]

let us know how well that works, I considered something like that to stop free feeding the rats. nasty things, would a rat be heavy enough to open it?

I am not sure the actual weight required to open it but I suppose it could be adjusted if necessary. A rat would not be heavy enough to open this one, though. I showed my husband a picture of one and he was able to design this from the picture without any plans. He made me this strawberry planter last year the same way. I showed him a picture of a table top planter and he made this one for my strawberry plants.

talented husband!! maybe you should rent him out!! lol

 

[CarolynF]

I grew up having chickens. My whole life my family has used chicken waters that are 5 gallon bucket you then tip over and the tray on the bottom fills. Now I am hearing about nipple waterers. What is the advantage of these?

The advantage for me, originally, was space. The run I had originally was rather small and I wanted to use the space under the coop (3' off the ground) to put the food and water so they had that much more room to roam. I kept the water bucket outside their pen and had nipple waterers mounted on a pvc pipe along the edge of the pen.

Since then I've enlarged the pen and converted the nipples to a 5-gallon bucket. We travel quite a bit and I want to provide them sufficient clean water to last for longer periods than I'd be able to with the tray. I've compared my method to DS's bucket & tray method and prefer the nipples. Even very young chicks learned to use them in a matter of seconds. On the few days each winter that it freezes hard enough to freeze the nipples I put out an alternate waterer.

It's just personal preference, not a big deal.

 

[CarolynF]

Quote:
Good Morning Mikey! How'd you fare yesterday? Any downed trees or power outages? We made it thru unscathed, thankfully. Listening to the news there were things crashing all around us, but we were spared. Ignorance is bliss sometimes!

Those are sure cute little JGs. Are they friendly? I really don't know anything about the breed other than they're large.

 

[CarolynF]

ChickieLady....

Have your Long Island Cheese seeds germinated yet? Mine haven't and I'm getting ticked. The seeds I have are 2 years old, from Heritage Seeds. They should still be good, but out of 8 seeds, nothing has sprouted. I have 4 in a wet paper towel in the house, so I know they aren't too cold. All the cukes I planted at the same time are up and getting and doing just fine. (green slam & boston pickling). Any words of wisdom for me?