Washingtonians

[BarnChick]

My goodness, so slow here today. Must be the nice weather! I know i was out enjoying it. So we leave tomorrow for Idaho. Going to be a long drive. We don't leave till about 4:30 in the afternoon, after school. We have to stop in Benton City and pick up the japanese chickens and the sebrights. Then its another 3 hours to home. Plus,have all the packing of the car, and the chickens have to go in. We'll make it home about 9-9:30. Then I'll be on sporadically to check in over the next few weeks as we don't have the internet at home and I have to go the library to use theirs. But, hey, at least I will be able to check in sometimes.

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
You grow a lot of stuff......how about these for your chickens. Kale, Arugala, Collard greens, Broccoli. And one more food that has a lot of vitamin D- EGGS!!! or the egg yolk anyway.

I've alot of pages to catch up as I been off line for 24 hrs...........
But wanted to mention a fact most old gardeners know already.
If your soil is depleted of necessary nutirents, so will be your veggies.
My identical head of lettuce may have more, much more vitamins & nutirents than say, the grocery store's commercial produce, due to my fantastic compost.
BUT
You also have to realize, if we are not getting enough vit D, and the chickens are not getting enough vit D, then either are the garden plants.
Plants soak up vitamins from the ground & the sun.
It has been over cast here all day, and was so yesterday.
I would say we are getting half to 1/3 the sun shine.
The garden grows, but is there really the most vitamins in the veggies and can possibly be ?
The answer is no.
Under these conditions, No.
proff is in how SLOWLY things are growing, fruits & veggies have a limit to what they themselves need to grow, let alone store up for producing seed, their ultimate goal.
So the veggies in the garden may look fantastic, but may very well not contain even half as much vitamins & minerals as, say, last year's did.
I still plant, harvest & give my birds lettuce, greens & they have free range as well.
But there is not enough sun.

 

[Chickielady]

Well I have been busy...
Finished un shoveling a bucket of pea gravel into a 5 gallon bucket & in through the gate & toss in the run..hard on the hands.
I slit an old rubber garden hose & put it on the handle, helps alot.
My parents finally came to visit, they have not been here for almost 8 months...and Dad was astouded by my garden...it is fantastic!!!!!!!
Mom took home several shopping bags of gourmet green, arugula & lettuces, and a big ziplock of radishes.
I gave her a flat of basil that is root bound & 12" tall as I have no more room for it....
We have to make Dad one of our hot frames with the heat tape in it for him to use next year.
he loved it now that he has seen it..works fantastic!
He has been carrying his plants outside on sunny days & back inside when cold, every day...what a hassel..and then the plants do not get as much sun as they can.
With the hot frame, they get under pot heat, and dual glazed glass means all the sun available, even in snow or icey weather.
It remains warm inside.

We will build him one tomorrow.
What else ?
Oh, still have not heard from HD about the materials list bid we dropped off yesterday...I thought by now the guy would have sent an e-mail or phone call....
Have not seen 1 egg (eating eggs) customer in a week and a half.
Starting to get worried..then today 4 showed up!
Now I am out of eggs til tomorrow.
I ordered the Broiler vitamins last night, they are on their way.
We have broilers anyway, but all birds will get it.
Did I miss anything ?

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
WOW how interesting. We have the same thing going with eggs AND DW has been on vita D since her last check up a month ago!!!!

My docs put me on a billion watts of calcium a day.....big horse pills I hate.
Despite taking them, my calcium is still too low, and he did a blood test & said I am very low on D, which he explains, is vitally necessary to calcium uptake.
Without D, you can take all the Calcium in the world & it will not be absorbed into your bod.
So I have to take D.
I cannot drink cow's milk.
But this is exactly why dairy producers ADD vitamin D to milk.
I always wondered where they get the vitamin D that they add....from cod ?????

 

[Chickielady]

Well geeze, I am glad I am not missing anything...where did everyone go ????????????????????????

I guess I will go back to something productive.
C-ya

 

[4cats3kids1hubby2many]

Quote:
I have eggs in lockdown today. After they hatch I will be stuffing them under my Hannah - she is a bantam cochin. She has already raised 1 batch for me. She went broody again and I could not break it. I hope she can't count or does not have a calendar as she has not been on the nest for a full 21 dys and she only has 1 egg under her. But she is a great mom...whoever hatches is going under her.

Isn't Hannah the one who just kicked her big chicks out in a huff? She's broody already? Or am I thinking of someone else? Looking forward to hearing what you have hatching in a few days!

Nope - you are not wrong - You are correct. She went broody already. Been trying to break her. I figured she had a couple of months off raising the other batch. I finally gave up and we will try again.

EDITED : Because I was at the Lipizziner Stallion show and now reading this it makes little sense - I did it from my phone.

 

[Ogress]

Something, I suspect my neighbor's dog again got one of my SLW's a couple hours ago out in my orchard. Usually I have my dogs in a big run in the center when the chickens are out, but I brought the dogs in to bathe them and brush them (and it takes 5+ hours to brush Shasta who is a long haired std poodle mutt). I was just finishing the brushing when all the chickens suddenly ran to the window I was at, and I hear my BO calling like crazy from back in the orchard. Went out to a trail of feathers, no blood, like when the dog took the other hen. My next door neighbor told me about 10 days ago that a pack of coyotes has been seen often in the 5 acre wood between his place and my orchard. Alex decided on his own to go check out the woods with his paintball gun. The only thing he saw was a lone elk who was not afraid of him, so he shot near it and thankfully it ran away from him and not toward him! Then he decided to hop on his bicycle with his paintball gun and ride up and down the hill we are on looking for a sign of whatever took the bird. He though he saw "a carnivore with the hen" so he shot it, turned out it was a bush with flowers on one side. Two little girls (the ones whose family own 4 dogs that run free) saw Alex with the gun, and one went running into her house. I had a little talk about when, where, and on what he may use his paintballs (in our backyard at the stump in the orchard or the neighbors chicken-killing dog only if it is in our yard.) Alex said he knew he was not aloud to take the paintball gun out of our yard, but Olivia handed it to him, so he thought it was with my permission.

 

[BarnChick]

letting my new girl roam around and eat bugs and such. She has found a treasure trove under the bush at the front of the house.

ETA

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
I was trying to decide if my favorite dress was still a going-out-to-dinner dress or if it's ready to be demoted to "summer wear after taking an evening shower but not yet ready for nightclothes" dress.

I didn't want to wear my really nice dress because I'm betting we end up at a Mexican place and salsa's heck to get out of silk. That's what I get for buying a dry clean only dress just because it was, like, 85% off.

Did it again: after dinner, and my favorite dress isn't up to a 15 degree drop in temperature at sunset, yeouch.

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
Oh boy..............

...I can just see the girls telling their parents and the parents reporting you to the HOA and then you will get in big trouble!
Course, they probably have nothing written in the HOA by-laws about a boy and a paintball gun......

So sorry about your hen!!!!
Now you have lost 2 in the last 2 weeks ?
I owe you 2, would you like Javas ?