Washingtonians

[elizmartin]

I did not know that.....and I could hit Molbak's on the way home.

Have you ever been to Flower World? just slightly north-east of Woodinville Twice the size of Molbaks, doesn't have the gifty areas but is all nursery stock...really awesome. Best to google directions but just off highway 525......eliz

 

[hallerlake]

Quote:

I think we all have some things we feel that way about in our lives.
My family will confirm I have mine. LOL!

Reblooming lilacs are just wrong. Lilacs bloom in the spring, not in the fall.

 

[TerrorBird]

Wow, everyone's so fancy with their crazy fish set-ups! We have a humble ten-gallon tank with six neon tetras and a peppered cory. They seem content with their blue gravel, marbles and variety of brightly-colored fake plants, so I think we're good for now.

My chubby cat loves to watch them when I'm at my computer. Sometimes she sits on the glass tank cover just to freak me out. Or she'll spot the fish food and casually shove it off the desk. She's such a punk.

 

[TerrorBird]

Quote: Flower World is a very short distance from me. Since mom really likes plants, I tend to go when I need a gift for her. I agree, it is a nice place.

 

[Justahannah]

Quote:
I've found peroxide works well on the furry black algae but not so much on the green stuff...if I'm doing delicate plants I mix it (whatever the standard strength in the brown bottle is) 50/50 with some water and dip for about 30 seconds, thick/rubbery plants I use it straight for the same amount of time, and if it's rocks or wood I'll let them soak until I remember to deal with them since it can't hurt them. Peroxide breaks down to hydrogen and water so a quick rinse and they're safe to go back in the tank. The next day it all turns hot pink and looks really gaudy, but a day or two after that it falls off and then I can just rinse it out of the filter. For the green spotty algae, I use a bleach dip...20:1 ratio of water to bleach, plants get a good swish around, rocks and wood can soak, sometimes I'll give them a quick scrub with a toothbrush to get rid of some of the dead algae if I'm feeling ambitious. Everything that touches the bleach mix gets well rinsed off in a bucket of water with 10x the dose of dechlorinator to make sure it's neutralized before going back in the tank. I've also found with decreasing my hours of light and doing more frequent water changes, I end up growing a lot less of the green stuff so I really haven't had to do the bleach thing for a long time. My black algae issues are in my upstairs tanks which are exposed to a lot of daylight so it's hard for me to limit that, but it's not really hurting anything other than my sense of aesthetics.

No shame in having feeder goldies, I've seen some beautiful comets come from the fairs! But they can get huge, so of you have a friend with a koi pond, maybe they'll take them in so you can get something prettier and the kids could still visit and feed them..the fish equivalent of finding them a nice farm home

. Goldfish do love to eat plants (I feed them duckweed for a treat), but I've had good luck with them not killing plants that have thicker or rubbery leaves. If you're ever in Tacoma I could share some cryptocorne (the leafy low purpley stuff in the front of the big tank) and java fern starts (the bright green stuff in the goldy tank), they've both stood the test of my goldies and are easy, low light plants. If they get eaten, at least they were free

. I've also heard they won' touch anubias, but despite being told it's one of the easiest to care for, I can't seem to keep it going, in my tanks it grows so slow it just gets taken over by algae and looks ugly, so I gave up on trying it.

 

[Rainwolf]

While I was wandering down the hill today following the girls, I was blindsided by Lyle.  He attacked my leg for no apparent reason.  Then he sat there all puffed up.  I waited until I could sneak up on him and grabbed him.  I carried him around like a football for about 20 or 25 minutes.  He managed to bite me a few times before I could secure him, though. 

I'm going to work with him until he understands that I'm top dog around here.  I've heard that roosters will go through a phase like this, and I will do whatever it takes to teach him.  He's smart, so I'm sure he'll learn.

You might want to do a couple tricks to make him behave.

1) when you are around the girls are yours.... do not let him try to mate and if he tries chase him for a min or two.
2) at feeding time the head rooster will not allow any other roosters to eat while the girls do and he's around. chase him from the food and keep him away for a good 4-5 mins while the girls eat. This will make you boss and him a sub.
3) if he really starts to get bad get a wire crate. put crate on the floor of the coop (out of roost bomb range) and crate him at night when you lock up.
then let the girls out in the morning and leave him in for a hour or 2 or more if he gets really bad. Feed the girls while he is locked up. let him out only after the girls have finished eating and you have pulled the food. Then let him out and no food. Then put the food down later and keep him away while girls eat again. (they are full and will only eat for a little bit cuz you put the food back where they can get it) after they are mostly ignoring the food then leave the food calling the girls with you. he will go eat like a sub rooster does after the boss rooster takes the girls out to forage.

4) is to chase him down and grab him or as my mom does with a bamboo stick "wack him and chase" you don't want to hurt him but the head rooster will not let a sub rooster get away with it and will chase him for a good long time or "wack" him until he starts to behave.

since your the head rooster ya gotta spend a little time making him realize that. after he gets the idea he will start to behave and you can go as normal. just enforce the no mating while your there rule and the no eating while your there... then walk away and let him take his spot as second in command.

You might also want to give a stick/bamboo cane to whom ever comes and visits the girls. He may stop being a bugger to you but might jump someone new as a possible competition for the girls/ranking.

If you have 2 roosters watch them and you will see what the head rooster does to rank the sub rooster. then imitate

 

[Justahannah]

Quote:

I think we all have some things we feel that way about in our lives.
My family will confirm I have mine. LOL!

Reblooming lilacs are just wrong. Lilacs bloom in the spring, not in the fall.

Do those actually exist? I'm with you on it being wrong, the smell of lilacs is the harbinger of wonderful summer things to come just like fall has its own musky mulchy smell that brings back memories of walking to the first day of school every year. Don't think I could handle those smells "naturally" occurring during the wrong seasons.

 

[elizmartin]

Someone just posted in the "hatch along" thread that I'm in and said they are at day 16 and have wiggling eggs, too. What's up with that? That's what mine did. Yet, I read that they wiggle just before hatching. Do they wiggle earlier, as well, or does this person have to lock down right away like I did?

HI, best of luck, i sometimes candle but mostly leave alone til a minimum of 24 days when most will have hatched. (i date my eggs) I know many folks like to check all the time but i feel they have a better chance not being handled all the time. I am not familiar with the Brinsea, i have the usual styro stuff with great hatch and remove chicks when they emerge. I don't even stop the turner and play lockdown since i add eggs regularly. I know that humidity changes with the weather, but i just keep a basic water level....only see them wiggle after they emerge.

I know we often want to comfort and try to make better, but when we add components to a system that should work on its own it can often throw the balance of the system out. I did learn this the hard way.
eliz

 

[TerrorBird]

Quote:
Thank you for the advice!

 

[elizmartin]

Thanks Jessica for passing the word along. Thank you to everyone for helping us learn through this hatching process. What an emotional roller coaster!

Well, I'm proud to announce that Chicken Rustler's Salmon Faverolles "Fudge" is a Papa! We have FOUR energetic little chicks trying to establish a mini pecking order. 2 pipped last night. All 4 hatched today. I was not here to witness the hatching, and my husband saved the day for the last one to hatch. Two other chicks managed to push a broken shell over the last to hatch and the pipped and partially zipped egg was trapped. DH steamed up the bathroom, took the incubator in, removed the two energetic little chicks and their left-over egg shells that were trapping the last one to hatch, allowing "Chirpy" to finally get zipped out after 18 hours since s/he first pipped.

CR... do the descriptions below give you any idea of who the mothers may be?



EGG "A" - First to pip, first to hatch... the olive egg: black chick with 5 toes on each foot. No visible feathers on the legs yet. The kids named him/her "Blackie."

EGG "D" - Last to pip, second to hatch... the brown heavily speckled egg: dark mottled chick, white chest, white spot on top of his head, white wing tips, feathered legs, 4 toes. The kids named him/her "Fuzzy."

EGG "E" - Third to pip, third to hatch... white egg: yellow chick, 5 toes with lots of feathers on feet. The kids named him/her "Softie."

EGG "C" - Pipped at the same time as the first, last to hatch about 18 hours later. Needed to have extra eggshells that got pushed on top of his/her egg removed in an emergency extra eggshell procedure in a hot, steamy bathroom... brown, less-mottled egg: dark mottled chick, white chest, white spot on top of head, white wing tips, feathered legs, 4 toes, looks very similar to "Fuzzy" except has a much more distinct comb. The kids named him/her "Chirpie" because s/he is LOUD. Came out last and let the world know all about it.

After "Chirpie" is finished drying, it is going to be very difficult to distinguish him/her from "Fuzzy.

The remaining olive egg"B" is still in the incubator. We don't expect it to be viable because it never developed an air pocket.

Below... "Fuzzy" - 2nd to hatch must be missing his/her egg. Gonna make it difficult to eat out of that dish. "Softie," the yellow chick, sacked out under the heat lamp.



My kids named the chicks before I got home from Vancouver.

I wanted one to be named "Chocolate Fudge" and another to be named "Vanilla Fudge". I'll have to see if I can convince the kids to rename them.

This baby pic is tooooo precious, congratulations ! ! ! Its funny they will run around like crazy and then plop/nap where they drop.....eliz