Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[ChickAudie]

A way to deter hawks and eagles is to prevent or present the illusion of not enough space for wings to operate. That can be accomplished with ornamental trees with nice canopies, holographic tapes, ropes with old cds tied to them (the birds have to be able to see the ropes or the game wardens would say your setting traps to injure the birds) and of course, netting. You can also plant clumps of bamboo but make sure you use root barriers or they will try to take over the runs. Even sticking 8 ft or longer bamboo poles with leave and stems attached will provide the illusion of a barrier to a diving or swooping hawk or eagle.
creativity can save your poultry so put on the thinking caps and come up with ideas to protect chickens and ducks while staying within the law and not spending a fortune.

on another note, here's an article on items we have around the home which can harm pets:
http://shine.yahoo.com/pets/26-household-items-poisonious-cats-38-dogs-130200299.html

Nice advice! Thanks Refamat!

OM Gosh, I am not going to try and catch up on 300+ posts. Just poppin in to say

to all my friends. Man it was so great to see everyone that was at the show on Saturday, I had so much fun. My plan was to stay longer if DH did not come with me because I knew he would be board, but we also had planned a surprise fun day for our kids. That get together just made me want to do one at my house even more now. Speeking of my house, I just got word that the bank is looking over our offer now and we should hear in the next day or two if we got it. I really don't see why they would say no, we offered what they were asking! Here hoping

.

Ya'll are so darn great!

Here hoping you get to move SOON!!! Farmin Momma, I must be a slow-poke, I am just now reading you have 5 kiddos, too!

 

[FirewifeJess]

Quote:
I was there April '02 - October '03 for Arabic. I was in MEII, with the worst Arabic teachers in the whole of DLI. Trust me. My class was from early June '02 through Sep '03, and I was stuck there for a couple months before/after because there weren't any classes open at Goodfellow. Oh.Darn. Stuck in Monterrey.

And it was 90 miles from my parents' house too, so I visited most weekends.

 

[lovinchickypoos]

I could take or leave the horses. I don't want standard 'row crops' - much more into permaculture.

seriously, my new silkies are probably in need of extensive psychotherapy. I put a catalope rind and a spoonful of quinoa in their cage this morning- and they are huddled in the corner- obviously, afraid of the scarey food!

It seems that my Silkies are, um....special too!!!!

The winds blowing about 20 mph here, had to get the last of my dwarf apples pruned. just got in couching up a storm Need Zyrtec now.

But the jobs done for this year.

Thank God, the wind stopped today!!! I'm in the Tri-S*itties and was getting hammered by that uber cold "breeze" also.

So DFH and I decided that we need a Tibetan Mastiff

.....Good thing we figured that out now, so I can start saving for a breeding pair in oh, 10 years or so......

Love them! DH says no way as he thinks they are a liability. We met one in Richland at an obedience class (they were in the one before us). I saw him and exclaimed, "is that a Tibetan Mastiff???!!!". The people were flabbergasted that I knew what he was. I just told them I'm a big dog nerd! He seemed like a stable dog. We went to their house to learn more about them. Of course, $$$$ was a huge issue in getting one and at that time there was only two breeders any where near and 1 had a bad reputation.
I think I've moved onto Pyrs now, though. Of course, that may change....again!

That stupid Cooper's hawk came through today. By came through, I mean that it came through the trees behind me while I was guarding the chickens and tried to grab a Belgian. I heard an alarm call and whipped around to see it zooming out of the woods. My rage-screaming alerted the little ones and they started to run by the time the thing landed. It still tried to run after them. When it saw me barreling toward it, it shot back to the woods and landed casually in one of the outermost trees. The scary part is that I was less than ten feet from the chickens. Gonna have to start rounding the girls up earlier in the day. Now my throat is ruined.

I'm so sorry, it's not funny at all, but I had to giggle as I've done the whole freak-out rage screaming thing when my dogs decided to chicken chase and wouldn't listen to me! I can picture what it may have looked and sounded like to my neighbors! Hope it stays away!

I am hatching 20+ Indian Runners (Holderread line) if anyone is interested.
They are going to be white, honey, cinnamon, blue or maybe even black.
PM me if you are interested.
First hatch is around easter.
Blue/green eggs.

My DH would commit me to an asylum if I got anymore feathered creatures, though I think Runners are adorable little bowling pins! Can't wait til my 3 feed store duckies grow up so I can work out the bugs in my property lay out and gain confidence with them! I'm guessing I have 1 Rouen, 1 Cayuga and 1 Khaki if the pictures I've seen run true.

 

[lovinchickypoos]

BUT - someone over on the natural thread posted this link to an interesting hawk versus birds story. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/608864/hawk-attack-stopped-by-larry-the-peacock take a look -pet peacock attacked a hawk that was attacking HIS chickens. I always thought peacocks were mean - maybe I need to get s couple of pea chicks & let the chickens raise them???

well - 7 more pages to catch up on - better get reading!

3 peacocks came with our house! The pre-owners had a bunch of various birds and couldn't get them sold before closing so we accepted them. They were in an enclosed pen and never did tame down for me. They certainly were not mean, though. I could catch them (sometimes by their tail

) if I needed to check them out. We eventually let them range and they disappeared one winter. I felt so bad for them. Still have tons of their feathers though!

 

[RustyHen]

Hi everyone I am surprised that so many of you have yellers (or yodelers? LOL) like my Heidi!

The feed I got at the show is fantastic! The girls do eat it and leave the other feed. Thank you so much to pbjls - Honeysuckle Hills and I will be back for more.

I forgot to ask though - is this flock raiser or layer? (I'm using it as layer currently - but the girls love it so much I'd love to give it to the chicks too if it's OK!)

Speaking of chicks...here are a couple photos from last week I haven't shared yet.

I like all of them, but love the 2nd pic of the chick getting a drink!

 

[chickiemomy]

Quote:
It's hard to appreciate the things we have, it is a lot easier to appreciate them when you DON'T have them.

On the other hand -- watching Dr Phil - makes me / my family seem so normal!

 

[RustyHen]

Chances are she attended when the school was in San Fran. By the time I went there, it had moved to Monterery -- not a bad place to spend a year (for Russian) - and an even better place to spend 4 months of TDY (for Turbo-Serbo)

My DH was stationed at Monterrey in the Navy for 4 yrs. that was before we meet and he loved it there still talks about it
. After we married he went into the AF for another 8.

 

[RustyHen]

We (really DH) own 1/4 of a 200 acre family farm in Illinois with a little lake. I don't want to live in the midwest again, I wish it was in WA or OR.

Imagine how many chickens I could have!

We visited last summer, it was the first time I'd been there or the kids. It was hot, buggy, humid, flat and dry. There was nothing living in the lake. But they had corn and soybeans. yippee. The farm house is long gone, the barn is gone, there is nothing except corn and soybeans. What a waste.

We get a farm check every spring though.

A famous quote from my son when we were there: "Gower lake is great, except for the bugs, humidity and extreme heat". It was 104 at one point. My Seattle kids can't take heat like that. They were melting!




I don't know how people live like that. I did live like that and I would never go back to it. 80% of the year it's too uncomfortable to be outside.

We lived in IL for 8 months during the summer it was a nightmare for me. 2 littles ones, one could not walk yet, so had to be carried everywhere.
Hot,humid, clouds of black smut blowing off the cornfields, tornado warnings every other day. There is NO way I would ever go back there again.

 

[HoneysuckleHills]

I was there April '02 - October '03 for Arabic. I was in MEII, with the worst Arabic teachers in the whole of DLI. Trust me. My class was from early June '02 through Sep '03, and I was stuck there for a couple months before/after because there weren't any classes open at Goodfellow. Oh.Darn. Stuck in Monterrey.

And it was 90 miles from my parents' house too, so I visited most weekends.

Wow, Jess, I didn't know.
Are you fluent in Arabic?
Mind me asking why Arabic?

 

[RustyHen]

This looks like a really nice coop for the right situation. http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/grd/3684217644.html

this is similar to mine, but as large as I wanted it to be ,maybe I can talk DH into extending it?