Washingtonians

[ByN8ureHomstead]

So my broody Orpington hens eggs are hatching. It have been close to 20 years since my last broody hen. My feed buckets are like CL's and I use nipples watering system.

Questions
Will mom feed and water the chicks or do I need to do something for them?
I read you should keep young one on medicated crumble until they start to lay, so do I separate them?



Different topic.

Wife has told me no more chicks in the house and she wants me to get rid of all my chickens and tell me I buy more after we are living there in Washington.

I may sell (probably not

) but if I do it wont be until we are in the process of the big move west. I will only have 24 birds minus what ever the winter takes.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
She's selling them as pasture raised, so that's way over carrying capacity, especially anywhere in the PNW where glacial soils, summer drought, and low soil temperatures are hard on sod formation and pasture recovery time (full disclosure: I live on a farm which pastures cattle and feeds pigs hay for just that reason: 50 pigs can destroy ten acres of pasture in a month here).

The more important question is where she got her information about chicken feed killing cattle.

So you are saying your soil suxs. What is the area ratio per acre for goats, cattle and pigs. Here I can have 15 goats per acre. She pulled it out of her

.

Look up "podzolic soils" and you'll get a thorough explanation of how and why they suck; not as bad as laterite but with many of the same problems. Add to that less than 13,000 years since glacial maxima and you've got a soil environment that has to be treated with respect to remain productive. I have 36 acres of pasture here and run a maximum of 16 cow/calf pairs, and suppliment with hay 8-9 months of the year, although when we irrigated and fertilized we could get three cuttings of hay. I'm on the extreme end of soil fragility, though, since I'm on sand. The Everson and Spanaway series soils are more moisture retentive and shed their nutrients more slowly because they have lots of clay... of course it's lots of clay glueing great big rocks together, but I digress.

Every climate has the advantages of its disadvantages: the climate resulting in thin soils with low inherent fertility is neither hot nor cold enough for temperature to be an issue in keeping animals alive either summer or winter. With more moisture retentive soils (those developed on cemented or uncemented glacial till or glacial muck, or most especially glacial-alluvial silts, which CR and CL almost certainly have, and maybe Illia) irrigation is not as much of an issue during the summer, when it is not uncommon to have less than an inch of rain for ten weeks starting the second week in July.

All of this is true for West of the Mountains only. East of the Mountains is dead dry, the soils are mostly volcanic in origin, and summer and winter temps are extreme. Excluding the Palouse- always excluding the Palouse, which gets 40 inches or so of rain a year and has soils that got blown in from elsewhere.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
So you are saying your soil suxs. What is the area ratio per acre for goats, cattle and pigs. Here I can have 15 goats per acre. She pulled it out of her

.

There are river valleys with good soil, but for the most part we're talking glacial dirt.

Which is a nice precis of my more verbose post.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Quote:
I know presactly what ya mean I remember my grandpa doing the same. I sometimes get VERY NICE heavy drums. Often they have a funny bunch of letters like USN or USAF or ARMY. I have no idea where they came from but are very heavy.
I will watch for some for ya.

 

[ByN8ureHomstead]

Quote:
So you are saying your soil suxs. What is the area ratio per acre for goats, cattle and pigs. Here I can have 15 goats per acre. She pulled it out of her

.

Look up "podzolic soils" and you'll get a thorough explanation of how and why they suck; not as bad as laterite but with many of the same problems. Add to that less than 13,000 years since glacial maxima and you've got a soil environment that has to be treated with respect to remain productive. I have 36 acres of pasture here and run a maximum of 16 cow/calf pairs, and suppliment with hay 8-9 months of the year, although when we irrigated and fertilized we could get three cuttings of hay. I'm on the extreme end of soil fragility, though, since I'm on sand. The Everson and Spanaway series soils are more moisture retentive and shed their nutrients more slowly because they have lots of clay... of course it's lots of clay glueing great big rocks together, but I digress.

Every climate has the advantages of its disadvantages: the climate resulting in thin soils with low inherent fertility is neither hot nor cold enough for temperature to be an issue in keeping animals alive either summer or winter. With more moisture retentive soils (those developed on cemented or uncemented glacial till or glacial muck, or most especially glacial-alluvial silts, which CR and CL almost certainly have, and maybe Illia) irrigation is not as much of an issue during the summer, when it is not uncommon to have less than an inch of rain for ten weeks starting the second week in July.

All of this is true for West of the Mountains only. East of the Mountains is dead dry, the soils are mostly volcanic in origin, and summer and winter temps are extreme. Excluding the Palouse- always excluding the Palouse, which gets 40 inches or so of rain a year and has soils that got blown in from elsewhere.

Had to look up Palouse, it looks like Kansas just ignore the the big water fall.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

We are getting light rain now. Kind of nice that it waited until after threshing bee but now I have to go out and do stuff in it like unload the truck.

Oh well at least it won't be hot and I won't have to wrroy aoubt sunburn getting.

 

[Mia_]

Quote:
So you are saying your soil suxs. What is the area ratio per acre for goats, cattle and pigs. Here I can have 15 goats per acre. She pulled it out of her

.

Look up "podzolic soils" and you'll get a thorough explanation of how and why they suck; not as bad as laterite but with many of the same problems. Add to that less than 13,000 years since glacial maxima and you've got a soil environment that has to be treated with respect to remain productive. I have 36 acres of pasture here and run a maximum of 16 cow/calf pairs, and suppliment with hay 8-9 months of the year, although when we irrigated and fertilized we could get three cuttings of hay. I'm on the extreme end of soil fragility, though, since I'm on sand. The Everson and Spanaway series soils are more moisture retentive and shed their nutrients more slowly because they have lots of clay... of course it's lots of clay glueing great big rocks together, but I digress.

Every climate has the advantages of its disadvantages: the climate resulting in thin soils with low inherent fertility is neither hot nor cold enough for temperature to be an issue in keeping animals alive either summer or winter. With more moisture retentive soils (those developed on cemented or uncemented glacial till or glacial muck, or most especially glacial-alluvial silts, which CR and CL almost certainly have, and maybe Illia) irrigation is not as much of an issue during the summer, when it is not uncommon to have less than an inch of rain for ten weeks starting the second week in July.

All of this is true for West of the Mountains only. East of the Mountains is dead dry, the soils are mostly volcanic in origin, and summer and winter temps are extreme. Excluding the Palouse- always excluding the Palouse, which gets 40 inches or so of rain a year and has soils that got blown in from elsewhere.

A couple of things. I lived in the Palouse for a few years. It has extreme temperatures (more so than when I lived in the Tri-Cities). It was not unusual for it to go up and down 50 degrees in one day. The loess is nice for growing things, but during harvest when they are kicking up all that dust/soil, and then burning the stubble, the air quality sucks.

The soil that I am used to is: Top inch or maybe two of organic things growing, (uncemented?) glacial till, and then hard pan (cemented glacial till?)

 

[Mia_]

Quote:
Sort of. There were a couple of minor floods (only about 500 cubic miles of water each) that washed away the topsoil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_scablands

So, all the current soil had to be blown in by the wind.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Hey does anybody know anything about copyright and it's laws? I suspect I may be having to deal with it soon.

S T U PID people ! ! ! ! This could spell curtains for me !

 

[herbandteas]

Does anyone know where I could get lavender cochens.........I have some now but they are a blue and a blue birchen.

DH says no more roosters so they have to be girls.