Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[ChickAudie]

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[ChickAudie]

Well, news (FINALLY !) from the bank, and all paperwork is done, appraisals fantastic, everything looks fantastic, and "it" is at the underwriters, so I expect loan to be signed within the week...and hopefully we can get the contractor on the roof/trusses ASAP....I see almost a week with no rain next week which may be the last rain break we get.......................

Since I was on the waiting list to get in to see the Allergist, they called yesterday & asked could I make it by 11 ?
So we hauled buns & got there just in time, and went screamin back here to keep the appoinments we had here......................feed run, egg & duck buyers showing up, etc.

Now my next appoinment for actual testing is Nov 20...bumped up yet again from Dec 20th !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hopefully we get all the testing done before the end of the year !!!

Did anyone start a swap thread for this upcoming show ? IF SO please PM me.
I have 2 quads of Black javas, and a 4 mo old Midget Bronze TOM tukey that need to go.
Also a few partridge Chantecler/ 1 cockerel & some hens & some chicks.

Hope everything goes well and you get time to relax!!!!


Have a good day y'all!

 

[justbugged]

Sweet Dreams JB!

Thank you! I don't recall any dreaming, But I do know that I slept very deeply, and longer than normal for me anyways. I still had a hard time waking up, but there is nothing like nasty little dogs, that have been locked up in their crates for to long, to make a girl get out of bed. LOL


I do feel sort of bad when the nasties have to start barking for me. But I know that they like their beds, and I know that I won't wake up to multiple puddles and piles of dog **** on my floors. They are the laziest little nasty dogs. I have a big dog door, and I know that they all know how to use it. They just don't like to go outside in the rain, and or cold. The nasty little puppies need their own homes. In another week I am going to put the ad in the paper again, and see what happens. I have always been able to find homes for puppies during the holiday seasons in the past.

 

[justbugged]

Went to collect the eggs yesterday and I found that one of my beloved ladies has gone broody. GRR! I removed her eggs and replaced them with ice cubes. Anyone else have any recommendations? She's one of my best layers! I figure I'll be swapping eggs for about a week. Thank goodness I used fruit boxes because I can just pull the box out onto the counter and poke around behind her and then put her back in her place with little to no protest from her.

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The only thing that I have ever found that works to break a brood, is to remove the hen from the nesting boxes and coop. She needs to be put into solitary for several days. If you can pen her up where she can see the rest of the flock, but can't doing anything with them, seems to work best. I have a portable dog run, that I can set up in my run. She will still need to protected from the weather, but she shouldn't have any comforts of home either, just food and water. About three days of this will break most broody hens.

I like the idea of ice cubes though, but my experience tells me that the hen would simply move nests at my house. I too currently have a broody, but I am ignoring her for now. She is a little frizzle Cochin hen, and it doesn't really matter to me when she is broody. I think that there was one summer that she was broody for the whole summer.

 

[JennS]

I have a question for silkie keepers. What other breeds do well with silkies? I would like to have silkies as part of my flock. Right now I think I only have 2 pullets out of all the chicks (not counting the undersized GLW, who may end up culled even if it's a girl) and they are a salmon Faverolles and a spotted Sussex. If I were to add a couple more pullets to my flock in addition to 2 silkies, what breeds would be nice to silkies? Or will I just have to write off having silkies until someday when I can have 2 separate flocks? (I can't do that right now as I don't have the room and the city limits how many birds I can have.)

I wish the boys would start crowing soon so I can be certain and start weeding them out! The 2 girls are trying to avoid the fighting but the 3 Wyandottes are too rowdy.

Jennifer

 

[justbugged]

Quote: Does anyone have any other contact info for her? CL? CR? Anybody?

I sent you a PM.

 

[Hinotori]

Well, last night was day three of kicking one of my hens out of the nest box at night. She's acting broody at night, but during the day is out and about as normal. If she starts trying to really be broody, I'll just put her in with the silkies. The rooster in there will fix her up. He doesn't really care for her.

She's half silkie, was raised by a silkie, and used to go out of her way to pick on any silkie she could find. I was so glad when she got that chip off her shoulder a few months ago.

I've thought about getting rid of the rooster in the large fowl pen. We're getting a little rooster heavy in there. Duke still hasn't figured out what he's supposed to do with the girls at 7 months. He has started sharing treats and calling when I toss them out. He just started crowing Friday. It was a short ridiculous sound. He's been practicing every day now and it's getting better. He's got a sort of chirupy musical voice right now on all his calls that I rather like.

 

[justbugged]

Another bizarre morning in my yard. Bootsie, my tranny rooster (I traded a 'hen'-turned-rooster for what I was ASSURED was a hen who then turned rooster on me), was attacked and left bloody and minus some of his gorgeous tail feathers. Once again, Bootsie sexually assaulted Goose who is a DUCK and a BOY!!! Goose's two closest buddies, Iceman and Slider, the two giant fatty geese, thugged up on Bootsie and, I swear, drug him behind the shed to beat on him. Thankfully I still had my fence picket in my storage shed in the run that I used as a rooster putter when I still had Lilly, the first tranny rooster. The fence picket was used as a prying tool to lever the geese off of the rooster. Now the pressure is really on to catch the rooster and get him out of here. He'll let me pet him and enjoys a good neck scratch but as soon as he sees two hands he's gone. Can you slip a chicken a valium? Some benadryl? (I am joking)

All this while still in my pajamas (and rubber wellies) and only slightly awake.

There is a fine art to sneaking up on the offender after the nights are out at night. Most of the time at my house I will grab a bird after they have gone to bed for the night, and I put them in a box for transport to the auction in the morning. It will also work for doing other more permanent solutions. It sure beats trying to chase them down during daylight hours. I also finally bought a large Salmon net this year. I found that after one of the girls went over the wall, and into the neighboring yards. That the net became a life saver.

I still get a giggle out of the look on the sales clerks face when he ask me "what kind of fish, was I going to be fishing for?", and I replied that I was going fishing for chicken.

I'm still not completely sure if he knew that I was serious or not.

 

[Hinotori]

I have a question for silkie keepers. What other breeds do well with silkies? I would like to have silkies as part of my flock. Right now I think I only have 2 pullets out of all the chicks (not counting the undersized GLW, who may end up culled even if it's a girl) and they are a salmon Faverolles and a spotted Sussex. If I were to add a couple more pullets to my flock in addition to 2 silkies, what breeds would be nice to silkies? Or will I just have to write off having silkies until someday when I can have 2 separate flocks? (I can't do that right now as I don't have the room and the city limits how many birds I can have.)

I wish the boys would start crowing soon so I can be certain and start weeding them out! The 2 girls are trying to avoid the fighting but the 3 Wyandottes are too rowdy.

Jennifer

I've only had one bird pick on my silkies. All of them have been raised with or by silkies and see them as normal.

The broody brahma I put in with them a few months ago got along fine. She listened to the rooster mostly, except she liked to wander off for foraging. He does not allow his flock to wander away from a circle around him. He's started punishing the EE chicks that are living with them because they don't listen well enough. He's a little dictator.

I've thought about seeing what type of chicks I would get from that cross, but I don't really think he'd be able to manage the task with such a big girl. None of the eggs she laid while in that pen were fertile.

 

[JennS]

Quote:
So if I pick up the silkies and other pullets at the show and put them with my SF and SS (after quarantine of course!), they should hopefully get used to each other?

Hmm, another question: what is a good age for slaughtering cockerels? If I can bring myself to doing my own boys (and if my husband is ok with it), how old can I let them get? I want to be certain that I'm not killing pullets. I'm pretty darned sure Jerk and Tandoori are boys, as they are both growing wattles and their combs are turning red. I've compared both SS's feathers behind the neck, and Tikka's feathers are pointy while Masala's are blunt. But if it takes 7 months before they crow, I don't think they will be very tender at that age!

Jennifer