Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chicken Rustler]

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FYI Paintball MARKERS are not regulated. you could use paintball to deter the cat. OR put the paint balls in the freezer. a well placed shot and problem solved !! DO NOT PLAY paint ball with frozen paint !!!!!

Paintballs won't freeze unless you put them in liquid CO2 or colder. The fish oils inside the balls keep them from freezing for just that purpose. I have been playing for over 12 years and a good friend owns a local paintball shop. If you can get a ball to freeze it will expand too much and not go through the barrel.

True they won't freeze solid but will get thick and hurt really bad. Also on most fields 300 fps is MAX. my marker I am hard pressed to get down to 300. yes I have a chrono and use it.
Sanctioned fields have to be below 300fps. Home fields it should be the same. Anything over that can and will break through the goggles. If you are having a hard time getting below 300 is your marker spring or gas driven bolt? Springs would have to be changed to a lighter strength spring(or cut down). Gas should be able to go down to 0. Do you mind telling me what brand marker? I have a lot of Spyder Markers and Tippmans as well, over $3000 worth. We are kinda into paintballing here, including my wife, she is real sneaky. I am glad to hear you have a chrono and use it. We have 2 hand helds and a rifle chrony.
Tippman 98 Powder coated green / charcoal hammered texture. I actually can get it down to about 280. I actually helped build a local field back in '99. I did all remote lighting so we could do night play and the booth could turn lights on / off anytime.

 

[FirewifeJess]

Years ago I had a Rottweiler cross and we moved to a farm house with the owner's house across from us. She LOVED to catch mice, voles, moles etc. The owner had chickens and I knew if I didn't get her afraid of them - she would kill them. I read a very old dog training book and it used a "penny can" to scare dogs away from livestock,chickens, etc.. The "penny can" is the small round and flat metal can that hard candies come in. You put some pennies inside and then tape it shut. When you throw it it is silent in the air but makes a big racket when it hits it's target. You follow the dog and just as they start to go after the animal, bird, etc. you nail them with that can. It doesn't hurt them physically but boy! does it scare the **** out of them. They have no idea where it came from because it doesn't make noise until it hits them. I only had to do it twice with that dog and she stayed far away from chickens.

We call this the Can Monster. We have always used an empty soda can and just add like 10 pennies and tape it shut at the top. It's LOUD! That's our scare deterrant for cats on the kitchen table or counter. My cat can sleep in our bed, under beds, anywhere he likes he's welcome to go, but something about a cat butt print on my food surfaces is a bit disgusting. Can Monster is awesome! I'll keep that in mind for puppy training when we get one.

As for what breed we'll get, I have a big feeling I'll likely get a large breed shelter puppy and call it good. We aren't likely to pay more than $100 for a dog and spay/neuter, we like our animals cheap. I know it will be mostly about the training. Breeds I have grown up with and loved are Rott Wilers, Labs, and Dobermans. It's still gonna be almost a year before we even consider a dog because we need to finish the chicken yard first; it's ugly and needs to be prettied up this summer.

 

[Hinotori]

Thank you for the input! I've never had my own dog before, so I've been researching the heck out of different training methods and looking into trainers in the area since I know I have a lot to learn and really want to make sure she stays a good dog. With the tugging, sometimes I let her win and sometimes I make her lose to keep it interesting, but she already knows the difference between my playful toned "Can I have it?" that means we're going to tug, and my serious toned "Drop it!" that means whatever she has is now mine, and reacts appropriately. I've also heard the opposite, that if you let the dog win every time, they have more trust, making it easier to keep their focus on you and not on distractions since they know you're a sure source of entertainment and fulfillment of an urge...there's really a lot of conflicting information out there and I'm hoping to sort through enough of it to make up my mind about a training plan soon. So far I'm using positive reinforcement for the basics (using play as the reward since she's not really food motivated) and it's working pretty well, though I"d love to eventually amp it up, I think she'd have a lot of fun with something like agility.

Just make sure you go to a real trainer, not Petsmart. I watched a few of their lessons. So very not worth the money. I knew more about training dogs in grade school than the teenagers they had teaching that class knew.

 

[walady944]

I would love to learn how to process my own birds, if the occasion arises.
Please let me know when you plan to have a class.
Thanks so much,
Lynn
Lynnwood, WA

 

[FirewifeJess]

Kinda liking the crappy weather, but only because it means the kids don't have anywhere else to be so we get school done early in the day I got my new 40lb galvanized feeder today! Hung it up and the girls are already trying to scoop feed out of it. Dummies. I hung it a little higher to discourage that, but I don't want to make eating too uncomfortable so it'll stay as is for now. That's one reason I liked our plastic feeder, they couldn't scoop feed out because of all the little partitions.

 

[JennS]

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I haven't checked out my snowdrops in the back yard, but my callas are sending up shoots and the bluebells are coming up already. Everything is confused. When we were in south Texas, my allergies were going nuts from all the plants blooming. The main culprit was cedars, but we saw blooming bougainvillea, crepe myrtle, plumbago, sage, oleander, and more that I couldn't identify. The temperature swings are messing everything up.

Jennifer

 

[Hinotori]

A few of my blueberries have put out a few leaves. I was hoping for some blueberries this year. I've already planned for the chicken excluder, since the few I got last year, they ate before they were ripe.

 

[hallerlake]

Snow Drops from my CA garden this last year. You should have see my CA home. City home, everyone has manicured yards with lawns and cement. I have a forest, huge pine tree, ferns, woodland plants. Looks so out of place there but you can take the girl out of the woods but not the woods out of the girl. All the cats and kids in the neighborhood loved my yard. We just cut the pine tree down this last spring. Miss it but it was sick.

Snow Drops

Your picture is a Leucojum which blooms later. Mine are Galanthus which bloom in winter.

 

[Chickielady]

Your picture is a Leucojum which blooms later. Mine are Galanthus which bloom in winter.

Beautiful ! I just bought some galanthus bulbs for my Mom 4 Christmas...better get them planted !
My Saffron Crocus is doing great, odd plats & no blooms so far.
How is everyone ?????????????????

 

[Chickielady]

New pics.




Upstairs in the loft, dormer to the left, green tub is where the window seat will be............




Building Inspector just left & he was very impressed with the super strength of this whole build.
Big window is in the master bedroom & looks out over the "compound" (Coops & garden)







Master Bedroom again...and the little Gambrel Trusses leaning against the wall are for the dormer...cute, huh ?
I mentioned to Einstein that we will have to make a dog house (like the dormer truss) to match this barn home, and he just GLARED AT ME !!!! LOL !!!

We could re-do all the coops to match too !!!!!!!!!!!