Washingtonians

[ByN8ureHomstead]

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Last year here in Kansas our temp was well below 0* (I think -8*). In my 12x16 uninsulated barn with 20 LF birds it was 15* warmer in there, I never used any heater or lights to heat the place up.
To keep your water from freezing use nipples on a bucket with a stock tank heater

This sounds like a good idea. Do the chickens need to be trained or do they figure it out on their own???

They may need a little assisting at first but when one finds it they all will follow. It should take less than day, all of mine found it in a couple of hours. Even though I have been using water nipples for almost 2 years when I medicate I use a plastic 1 gallon waterer and they act like they are dying of thirst.

 

[Ogress]

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This sounds like a good idea. Do the chickens need to be trained or do they figure it out on their own???

They may need a little assisting at first but when one finds it they all will follow. It should take less than day, all of mine found it in a couple of hours. Even though I have been using water nipples for almost 2 years when I medicate I use a plastic 1 gallon waterer and they act like they are dying of thirst.

I use both - I found whe I used only the nipples that egg production dropped. I have a 3 gallon that I refill a few times per week. The hens at the bottom of the pecking order use the nipple waterers. All prefer drinking from puddles after a rain.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

OK I hate to be the bearer of bad news but. One of our friends needs positive thoughts and prayers or her FIL. I don't have details and am not at liberty to say more. Just asking that some may keep them in your thoughts and prayers. If I get more info and permission I will fill you in.
Thanks Rob

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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Could be that your thyroid isn't working properly. That was my main symptom with my thyroid. Could never get warm, frozen hands and feet.


Justbugged and Stumpfarmer, can I ask you to describe your pain in more detail on your hip bursitis? I think I may have this. I can go for awhile and it is fine. Than it flairs. A dull constant pain and then shooting twinges right in the joint. I can totally feel the ball rubbing in the socket and have to move. I can not stay in the same position when it starts shooting and twinging. It has kept me awake as well if it's going on at night. I find it hard to get comfortable. This has been going on for the last 2-3 yrs and is getting worse. I went in two years ago for x-rays because something was tweaked in the hip. I could not lift my leg up to tie my shoe. It just would not go. When I went in for the xrays she put me in unbearable positions, but the next day the tweaked whatever was fine, and they said my x-rays were clear. But the flairs are worse now. So I think it's time to go back. I was diagnosed with JRA in middle school, but it only affected my knees for 2 yrs, and luckily I never had any more issues with it, but I worry that arthritis is lurking out there and gonna get me!! LOL! I've also been diagnosed with bursitis in both shoulders, but those flairs are very few and far between.

For me the best I can describe the pain in my hips is like having a very large severe bruise on my hip joints. So as I try to lay on my sides, I feel like I am laying all my weight on the bruised area. Of course it's not bruised, and it shouldn't hurt. I have very large hip joints, so exercising doesn't help much for me. It seems that as the bursa enlarges that it puts pressure on the joint. So by stretching out the joint it makes more room for the bursa. I just don't know why the bursa swells in the first place. I could manage the enlarge bursa, if sleeping on my stomach didn't create inflammation in my lower spine. The anti inflammatories make the difference between being able lay in bed and actually sleep. I am not fond of anti inflammatories, because of the side effects. But I am unwilling to give up on being able to sleep. It doesn't help that both of my shoulder hurt too. But they are more tolerable.
The other place that the bursitis causes me trouble is getting in and out of the car. I drive a Volvo wagon, and I seem to seize up while sitting in the car. So getting out is not fun. It takes me a bit to get going again. I also seem to cuss just about every time. The Fibro causes my legs to be very tender. It feels like bruises being touched hard whenever anything presses on the leg. Most often it will be one of the little dogs that is trying get close to me. Even the 5lb dog to too much weight.

You mention clicking and being able to feel the ball of the joint rubbing. That is way beyond just bursitis. I find that most doctors don't seem to know what causes bursitis, and there is very little treatment for it.

I knew about the thyroid, but if one's blood test come back reading in the range of normal, then it doesn't matter that a nuclear scan that came back abnormal matters.

I read this before 5am, when I'd been awake for more than an hour and wouldn't be back to sleep for another hour and a half, because my hips hurt and I was awakened by every bit of scar tissue on my lower legs feeling as if it were on fire; don't know if it's fibro, because it's associated, always, with spiking blood glucose. So: possibly incoherant, sorry.

Anyway, bursitis of the hips in my case is mostly felt as a crescent of pain right above the hip socket. It is worsened by walking on concrete, sitting in cars (my husband's ortho says that the driving position in most modern sedans is bad, bad, double bad and wrong for anyone with lower back, hip, or knee problems because it leaves the legs unsupported from the upper leg outward), sitting at all. It makes it impossible to lift my feet much when I walk, which means I catch my toes a lot and fall often. Catching my toes on uneven ground (and I am the lord and lady of uneven ground, see: cows, sandy soil, moles) also makes my hips hurt. It makes me walk slowly, trying to avid more pain; it also makes me use a shopping cart every time I get a chance, so I can balance upright (the obnoxious git who diagnosed me by putting his thumb on the protruding bursa and pushing said large-breasted women are more prone to bursitis in general) without putting as much strain on my lower back. I titrate my shopping over the entire weekend. I lay down with my feet up when I hurt.

And about three nights out of seven I am awake in the middle of the night in too much pain to sleep, which gives my anxiety disorder a chance to rip and makes me long for an off switch.

Doing some yoga postures, like downward dog, and also pelvic tilts, helps a little.

 

[RonB]

ReiMiraa

Why do you think you need to heat your coop? how big is it? Did your GREAT GREAT grandparents heat their coop??? I DON'T THINK SO !!!

Ask Chicken Rustler if he heat his coop back in the late 1930's

. My coop has got down to 20 and my girls were fine. The DW got a little cold but the chickens were fine

Just keep them out of the draft.. you can buy electric water heaters or hang a heatlamp over your water'er

 

[broodytood]

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What did you eat for breakfast? !!!

 

[RonB]

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I've seriously thought about it, but I don't have a good location for them. Our house is fairly small. There's no garage and no power to the shed outside. Our laundry room is the most likely option, but it's not very big and my husband would probably have a fit, especially if the worms started to smell. Second best place might be our storage room/attic, but it's adjacent to DS's bedroom...not sure I want to go that route either.

Given that your son is 6, he may think that growing meal worms is the greatest idea ever. Little boys often think bugs are very good fun.

Kim DIDN'T raise mealworms very long. I think it was too much of a pain. at first I gave my girls mealworms but it cost too much. there are SO MANY other things ya can feed them.

I'll bring ya over some oats from work next week. my girls love warm oatmeal

 

[Chicken Rustler]

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Yup I learnt how to do it from Mr. Ron. Since he has been around way longer than me.

 

[RonB]

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If ya ever just want to give some away, I'll take them. my landlord and I struck a deal, I'll supply the birds and he will butcher them and we will split them

 

[RonB]

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Yup I learnt how to do it from Mr. Ron. Since he has been around way longer than me.

The Mr. Ron that CR is talking about is my GRANDFATHER

they grew up together