Washingtonians

[Chickielady]

Quote:
Chickielady I gave you a WHEATEN cockerel

I know you had a Blue, and a Brown Marans....and I took him to Zgoatlady.
You checked him over to make sure you grabbed the brown, not the blue, and in the crate he went.
(I did not even look at him)
He was to replace the BCMarans Cherie (Zgoatlady) had that had died....
Cheryl is talking about a mean little Wheaten Ameraucana Cockeral that I hatched from eggs from cpartist, and the little booger chases her toddler daughter, Chloe.

 

[Kaneke]

Quote:
I am envying you those nice cedar deck timbers

our cedar deck seems to be giving up the ghost after .... mm ... must be 18 years now

has been treated ALMOST every year with preservative, but we were short on cash flow a couple of summers (treatment must be done when they are DRY, which means late summer usually), and DS didn't do it the years that DH and I were gone for most of the summer ... so rot has set in, at the board ends where they are screwed in

I just heard an egg song ... but I'm not sure what's happening, I got only ONE egg yesterday ! usually there are four to six ...

gotta make or buy a couple of hen saddles before the cold weather sets in -- for some reason two of the girls are missing a lot of back feathers, the other four don't seem to have the problem, dunno why

 

[Chickielady]

Well, we were visited again once by the big racoon..but all birds were cooped so no injuries.
The dog alarm went off, DH went out, 9mm in his pocket, and saw nothing.
I told him to stay inside, let the critter go in the trap..but he must have sacred it off.
I would sleep better (and go shopping with an unworried mind) knowing the big coon was caught!
Seriously, the coon could come back any time, not just at night.
And all the birds are out in their pens now.....

But, we have to go to Lacey & visit Mom & Dad in Elma.....so I just get to turn the radio up LOUD, on the porch here...
And still I will worry all day...

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
I am envying you those nice cedar deck timbers

our cedar deck seems to be giving up the ghost after .... mm ... must be 18 years now

has been treated ALMOST every year with preservative, but we were short on cash flow a couple of summers (treatment must be done when they are DRY, which means late summer usually), and DS didn't do it the years that DH and I were gone for most of the summer ... so rot has set in, at the board ends where they are screwed in

I just heard an egg song ... but I'm not sure what's happening, I got only ONE egg yesterday ! usually there are four to six ...

gotta make or buy a couple of hen saddles before the cold weather sets in -- for some reason two of the girls are missing a lot of back feathers, the other four don't seem to have the problem, dunno why

Rochester Lumber carries the cedar decking..quarter rounds and full.
The quarters are sanded on 3 sides, the full on all 4 sides.
We found no cedar decking anywhere else.
Oddly enough, it is the sub-deck timbers that rotted...alot of the decking was just fine.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
I am envying you those nice cedar deck timbers

our cedar deck seems to be giving up the ghost after .... mm ... must be 18 years now

has been treated ALMOST every year with preservative, but we were short on cash flow a couple of summers (treatment must be done when they are DRY, which means late summer usually), and DS didn't do it the years that DH and I were gone for most of the summer ... so rot has set in, at the board ends where they are screwed in

I just heard an egg song ... but I'm not sure what's happening, I got only ONE egg yesterday ! usually there are four to six ...

gotta make or buy a couple of hen saddles before the cold weather sets in -- for some reason two of the girls are missing a lot of back feathers, the other four don't seem to have the problem, dunno why

Rochester Lumber carries the cedar decking..quarter rounds and full.
The quarters are sanded on 3 sides, the full on all 4 sides.
We found no cedar decking anywhere else.
Oddly enough, it is the sub-deck timbers that rotted...alot of the decking was just fine.

That's because the decking itself dries out, and the framing timbers stay wet at the contact, plus the fact that a lot of wood decomposers work best in the dark.

I got three Hamburg eggs yesterday for the first time since Maggie started to moult. She looks particularly half-assed right now, since she'd had one wing clipped anyway and now only has a few half-feathers in the primary flight range. she's also ticked off that I covered the part of the run where the Layena dish sits so it would stop getting rained in: tiny little chicken pushing 18" rubber feed pan up hill to get it back into the weather when I checked them first time yesterday. Chickens is weird.

 

[Kaneke]

Quote:
I have heard of putting fake eggs, golf ball, rock etc in the nest. I have also heard limit thier space some to encourage use of nest boxes. I really am not sure. I have been lucky and just find an ooops did I drop that on the floor once in a while.

Yes, the fake eggs work well! I also use straw or hay as nest box material--I have found they lay in the boxes better if it's something different than what I use on the floor (the floor has shavings)....

my girls seem to like the shredded paper (mostly envelopes ! ) that I put in the ex-kitty-litter nest boxes ... quite different from the sand in the coop, and the soft sandy dirt in the covered run

lots of paper shredders in most thrift/2hand stores ...

if you don't use it for the chickens, it breaks down a lot faster in compost, when shredded ... and no one is going to compromise your ID by digging through your compost pile !

I had put golf balls in one of the nest boxes, and that is the one they DON'T use ~!

(they don't seem to like the repurposed plastic recycling bins, they much prefer the covered litter boxes -- perhaps because they are darker and deeper lengthwise)

my feral freerange hens on Maui usually laid eggs either under piles of spiny branches (Cook/Norfolk Island pine) lying on the ground, under the electric-meter enclosure (a couple of feet off the ground), or under the solar water panel (slanted, and about six inches off the ground at the low point, with nasturtiums and wedelia growing along the sides) -- places they felt safe, defendable from predators (on Maui those were cats, dogs, owls, and sometimes mynahs)

 

[Illia]

Quote:
Yep, and my only blue is a Blue Wheaten, hence Wheaten is what I sold.

Good to hear though, would hate to know he didn't turn out. I've only once ever heard of a mean Marans (french type) male, but, same goes for Ameraucanas.

 

[Totalcolour]

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I will gladly pay for some, specially the bleeding hearts! We have shade and moisture in super abundance!

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

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[hallerlake]

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I have acres of trillium, sporting purple flowers last summer, and seed pods now, if anyone is interested, I will harvest the pods.........

Yes--I am interested!!! I love trillium and I so rarely see them these days. They remind me of playing in the woods by my house as a kid.

I was fortunate that this house came with a couple of big trillium clumps that had been seeding themselves into silly places like the driveway. I've been digging up the seedlings, and planting them around the garden. One day, I will have masses of them. They grow really slowly so it will be a while. It's three years before they even have the characteristic three leaves