Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Stumpfarmer]

It begins!  I am now a hunter!  I will hunt, find and, hopefully, do my prey in.

I saw a small dark critter run out of my greenhouse yesterday.  I saw some teensy dark poops in there a few days ago, so I have been on the lookout.  I have an unused bale of straw in there that I'm now afraid to touch!  I bought it when I thought I was going to put straw in my run, but decided the girls were fine on soil, and the soil is easy to scrape clean of poo each morning.  I NEED to get that bale of straw out of there, and bury it in my garden, or something.  DH didn't look to thrilled to touch it either.  Instead we put 2 snap traps, 2 sticky traps, and one Tomcat rat/mouse bait box inside the greenhouse.

I guess my greenhouse is now out of reach for my wee boys.  Unless I pick the thing up and physically move it.  Oh well, with this weather I wasn't putting them out there anyway.  I was hoping the weather would clear soon and they could start going back out.  They like it out there, and it's easy to hang the light in the greenhouse.  The greenhouse keeps the wee boys toasty warm.

Bummer!  I really didn't need another thing to have to deal with right now.  The holidays are busy enough.

You know, if you don't fill them with poison, any chicken bigger than the tiniest ones will kill and eat mice. Rats, no (the Emu raiser down the road says his big birds eat rats, but it would take more than that to get me to raise emus!) but mice are one of the long list of vermin that chickens see as yummy protein treats.

Also mice are a good sign, since the first thing that happens when you get rats is that the mice disappear.

 

[FirewifeJess]

Bah. I had to leave the poultry show early on Saturday to attend callbacks for "The Children's Hour" which is being produced at Lakewood Playhouse. There was a lot of talent there, so although the director was very complimentary, said he's enjoyed my work for years, always wanted to work with me, blah blah blah, I didn't get cast in the show. I had a pity party for about 20 minutes, then thought of all the good reasons for NOT being cast, not the least being that rehearsals would begin during the Christmas holidays and that really puts a crimp in my schedule, especially when I think I'm hosting Christmas Eve for DH's siblings.

But not being cast also means I left the show early on Saturday for naught. Oh well - it's the nature of acting. We don't always get the role we're after. But I do have that stage managing gig coming up for "Little Shop of Horrors" coming up soon and it's a paying gig, so that's good. AND, I just got word yesterday that a director in Olympia wants to produce an all female cast of "Reservoir Dogs" which is definitely NOT a show for everyone but would certainly add some diversity to my resume! Should be a pretty interesting show...

So after our big storm yesterday, I'm looking at my VF Silkie coop and my poor bedraggled girls who even though they do not freerange are getting wet from rain coming in through the sides of their little run. I'm thinking I might enclose the lower part of that run with plastic to protect them from the elements but would still leave plenty of ventilation. Am I right about this?

This is the coop before it was painted and before we finished the ramp. So I'm thinking of wrapping the lower portion (like 18") in plastic, so that they don't get wet. It seems right now even when they're seeking protection under the coophouse that the rain will blow in sideways and turn my fragile little silkie flowers into wet noodles.

During these major storms, you could easily wrap 3 sides of that thing with plastic to keep out the driving rain and stil lhave plenty of ventilation. I would wrap all but the door side, unless that's where the rain is coming from in the first place.

I'm just SO happy that VF and I decided to make the low side of the roofed run the way we did; rain comes from that side almost always, so if that side had been the 8' side, instead of the 4.5' side, my chooks would be a LOT wetter!!

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

Quote: Awwwe, Scottie. What a sweet soul. I don't know if I've ever shared this but he was born an untrusting soul. Took some time, no ropes, no halter. Once he came around he was in my lap! What a joy he was. So glad we found you Jean for his forever home! Scottie and Sarah (my avatar) took care of me for a time. Had to part ways with both but what a joy they were! I will always hold them dear! Sarah and Scottie were like two peas in a pod! Someday they will reunite! I know they will remember each other. I still have Sarahs Babe (Luke) and Sarahs full sister (Spring). They are the last I have of those good days. I will hang on to them as long as I can. Only parting if it means losing the farm or life or death. Ugh, oh my soul. Such sadness to part ways.

Scottie and Sarah as weanlings


My Sarah Bear






Sarah and Scottie

 

[itsren]

Quote: Thats not what I heard. Is there something printed somewhere that says that they don't look unless asked? But I guess thats no proof they don't snoop if they wanted to. They have the ability. I don't trust anyone. Besides, I think when I log in some kind of alarm must go off at BYC headquarters. Even at this hour, I'm usually the only one logged in but their are ALWAYS 'guests'. I think I'm being stalked! LOL
Because yer just such a trouble makin bad girl!!!

I don't know about BYC - but I used to moderate 2 scrapbook forums, and had even started one of my own (which I quickly deleted when I realized how much work running a forum was). Yes, the owners and/or moderators can see your PMs. "Guests" are usually lurkers. There are web crawling programs that will go through and create fake accounts and attempt to make inappropriate posts. That was one of the biggest parts of my job when I was moderating - finding those posts (sometimes including very inappropriate photos) and deleting them as quickly as I could find them.

I'd suggest to become familiar with BYC rules, realize this is a family-friendly website and post accordingly. Always remember, 4-H children are members of this site - and if you wouldn't want your child reading what you post, don't post or even write a PM about it. It will help the moderators tremendously. I'd hate to see BYC go away because the owners and moderators can't keep up with the forum.

Understand something - many of these forums DON'T make money, except on advertising and sales of their own products. Just because BYC is huge on the internet, does not mean the owners are wealthy because of it. I've seen that assumption posted here more than once. If the forums become too much of a pain in the rear-end, owners will shut them down. I'd hate to see BYC go away because they decided it was no longer worth the hassle of trying to moderate the forum. I was devastated when the one large scrapbooking company decided to get rid of it's website. They were popular on the web and the collection of scrapbooking ideas was enormous. It took less than two weeks for EVERYTHING to be gone after they decided they were done with the members bickering with each other, and decided to shut it down. Other than sales of their own products, they made no money by having the forum, and they decided the sales weren't worth the hassle.

If we all follow the rules, play nice and work together, we could make this job easier on the moderators. I hope BYC remains a lasting source of information about raising chickens.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

Quote: People really need to remember that this forum is not private by any stretch of the imagination. Even before I signed on here, BYC posts were very often my first google hit for chicken-related search terms. Google has an algorhythm which guesses the results you want according to other searches you've made, so the more you come here the more you'll see BYC results, but the first time I searched for Silver Laced Wyandottes, I got a result from the Wyandotte thread that had pictures from the Foleys of roosters they had for sale, including a BLRW, and I went a little crazy over them, not knowing that Foley's BLRWs are not representative of a lot of what's out there.

But I digress (as usual, is anyone surprised?): BYC is a Big Deal on the Internet, and thus somewhere we need to be on our company manners. It is also a private enterprise, which means the owners make the rules: freedom of speech is freedom from government censorship; it does not mean freedom to say anything you want anywhere you want without response or consequences.

Sorry if I'm being pedantic, but these are lessons I've learned the hard way after over twenty years online, and what small wisdom I've scraped together I try to pss on to save others scars.
OK, You are soooo right. But I yam what I yam. I will post within the guidelines the best the I can but if it is the death of me then so be it. Whatever! If I get banned then just check with Rustler or Chicky if you would like to get in touch with me or look on Facebook! I'm there too. Geez, no big loss, chickens aren't the entire world.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

Take a look at the Handiwork of this harvest of Romanesco Broccoli and tell me this just happened by chance!!!!! Really?

 

[itsren]

Quote:
I have a feeling they are young rats. We don't see mice around here. If it was a mouse, it was a very LARGE mouse. I'm just glad it wasn't a large rat. There's been a long-standing rat problem in the neighborhood. So far, we've had little problem in our yard - but the two neighbor's next to us have had quite a few problems. I think I accidentally created the ability for them to move over into our yard by keeping the greenhouse up and by bringing in wood to build with. The one neighbor, who's huge woodpile and overgrown shed harbored the rats for many years, finally cleaned up his yard in attempt to destroy their housing after their two dogs almost died from eating rat bait blocks the other neighbor set out (without protection). The rats managed to physically drag the bait blocks over to the fence, and the dogs were able to eat them through the fence.

I think the rats are scrambling to find new homes.

I need to go through my wood, figure out what I'm actually going to use and get rid of the rest. I have a long strip of bushes I need to prune up from the bottom, as well. That will be a chore! That thing covers the entire length of my back fence.

The bait station I'm using is the one that is not refillable. I've had one over by my compost bin for a year, and it worked very well. The bait stays dry and secure inside. http://www.amazon.com/Motomco-Tomca...dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

 

[SadieSue]

Quote: Awwwe, Scottie. What a sweet soul. I don't know if I've ever shared this but he was born an untrusting soul. Took some time, no ropes, no halter. Once he came around he was in my lap! What a joy he was. So glad we found you Jean for his forever home! Scottie and Sarah (my avatar) took care of me for a time. Had to part ways with both but what a joy they were! I will always hold them dear! Sarah and Scottie were like two peas in a pod! Someday they will reunite! I know they will remember each other. I still have Sarahs Babe (Luke) and Sarahs full sister (Spring). They are the last I have of those good days. I will hang on to them as long as I can. Only parting if it means losing the farm or life or death. Ugh, oh my soul. Such sadness to part ways.

Scottie and Sarah as weanlings


My Sarah Bear






Sarah and Scottie

So beautiful. It's good you had them and nice to know Scotti is still in good hands.

 

[itsren]

Take a look at the Handiwork of this harvest of Romanesco Broccoli and tell me this just happened by chance!!!!! Really?

Isn't that what it is supposed to look like? It's not regular broccoli.

ETA: It's pretty cool looking, isn't it? I've never eaten that type. Let us know what it tastes like - and if it tastes similar to cauliflower. If it does, I may try to grow it. I have never been successful with cauliflower.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

Quote: LOL, Yes! It's SUPPOSE to look like that. No worries!