Washingtonians

[Chubby Chicken]

Hello Washing ton. My neighbor next door feeds the feral cats, and doesn't care that she is feeding raccoons and possums.

When I was a kid, in Southern Oregon, California King snakes and timber rattlers by the coop. Yikes. DH assures me that here are only garter snakes here. ( I haven't lived here for very long)

 

[Kaneke]

Hello Washing ton.  My neighbor next door feeds the feral cats, and doesn't care that she is feeding raccoons and possums.

When I was a kid, in Southern Oregon, California King snakes and timber rattlers by the coop.  Yikes.  DH assures me that here are only garter snakes here. ( I haven't lived here for very long)

to our very chatty thread

 

[TheReidHomestead]

Hello Washing ton. My neighbor next door feeds the feral cats, and doesn't care that she is feeding raccoons and possums.

When I was a kid, in Southern Oregon, California King snakes and timber rattlers by the coop. Yikes. DH assures me that here are only garter snakes here. ( I haven't lived here for very long)

Welcome!!! Glad to have you here! Just be forwarned, this thread usually moves at a pretty rapid rate! Just jump on in whenever!!!

Sorry your neighbor is feeding the predators......that stinks. Maybe you can offer her some of your eggs and have a little talk with her?

I'm pretty sure a coyote took my hen yesterday. We have tons of them around and I noticed when I took the puppy out just after dark last night that there were at least two of them yipping and screeching over on the neighbor's property. They were probably celebrating after eating my hen!!!!

 

[Kaneke]

could this be the solution for T Hi ???

washer and dryer free in Dupont, will deliver too for a fee

http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/zip/2818138110.html

 

[Chubby Chicken]

I asked for a chicken tractor for Christmas. I pulled it out of the shop last weekend. So now the neighbors know. We're getting chickens. I tt zoning. I can have as many chickens and roosters as I want, as long as they are 40 feet from the property line, and have a sq. foot of space.

I thought this would be pretty enough to move around the front yard.

 

[Chubby Chicken]

Now I need to decide what kind of Bantams.

 

[ReiMiraa]

yeah i stopped by the house on my weekend adventure (pullman-moseslake-seattle-home-pullman) and what i saw at the chicken coop depressed me and i had to make sure not to cry.
it looks like a warzone. feathers everywhere. and many yards away i see 2 chicken carcasses/ skeletons frozen from the bobcat (rumor has it that problem might have been taken care of by someone else on a different property). the coops are about ready to collapse, one of them has (but it wasn't being in use thankfully). The crew was lazy and waited a day longer to work on clearing snow off and around the coop, and that day was the difference from that coop standing and not... i went from having more birds than could fit in 4 coops to i barely have 2 coops filled. at least i still have a few of my favorites left... the ducks are not happy because they are in lockdown with the chickens, they are dirty because they cannot swim in their little tub. the coop is already messy and adding water would be worse. this is a crappy winter. 4 years of keeping birds and this is the winter that we are struggling to make it through. sometime this week i think they are going to put some supports in the center of the coop to keep it from collapsing. the snow is removed from the roof but it is bent from the waterlogging.
I now understand that a series of unfortunate events can totally make one lose interest in something. i am now not sure which was harder to take care of in the winter, a horse or the chickens. told dad to add more straw in the coop because i think i see the birds starting to get that brumblefoot thing.
-sigh- its not the snow load but the rain that follows that is making the winter very hard. the driveway is normally coated in 1 inch of ice every morning so we have to park at the bottom if the cars are not already trapped at the top.
at least the birds are spoiled happy in the summer to make up for the winter misery. nothing is dry, the snowmelt and rain drain under the coop and soak the floor (plus the dripping from the roof)... i think this spring when the coop is cleaned i want the coop taken apart and just have the tractor scoop up the bedding.... i think it will be a few feet deep..... no one should have to muck that out. even if the crew wears a respirator.
this winter is overwhelming and frustrating because i cannot do anything about it.

 

[Ogress]

So I just went out to check on the birds and let the layers out to free range, which I did. Then I was walking over to the Orps coop area, and came across a HUGE pile of feathers. I'm so sad! I let out my Lav Orps yesterday, and something took one of my two split black hens!

At least I still have a pair left, but why one of the splits?!?!!?! Ugh. DH closed the birds in last night when he went to feed the goats, so he didn't notice the one missing as he just closed their gate. So now I am rethinking even working on the project. I might sell the whole flock and that would leave me more room for English Orps or BLRW's. Bummer.


All the chicks that have hatched are doing well. However, the Marans that had pipped died. I hear others cheeping in there, but no pips yet. Worried about them!

I'm sorry - That is a fear of mine when I bring the flock in - someone will be looked over and left out..

 

[Breshcandra]

Silkies =) But they do go broody

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[Stumpfarmer]

Late January is always the time of year I feel like selling everything and moving into a tent (Dad's formulation) or into a condo overlooking Pike Place Market (my modernization): everything's muddy and bad-smelling and it's all work, work, work and bad weather and no time to deal with all the things that need cleaned up/put away/taken to the dump.

I thought I'd have time to get things caught up on outside in time to wash my hair and make dinner but DH was too pained to water the EEs and oh, yeah, left clean dishes stacked all over the stove, so I have to deal with all of that before I can wash my itchy, itchy scalp.

I feel sorry for him, but less so since he's avoiding the stuff that makes him feel better and get stronger, like aquaerobics. And the more I do things he used to, the more long-running problems like my right hand, left shoulder, hips, right knee and left ankle cause me more pain than I can deal with.

Oh, well, three minutes left on my lunch break and then it's egg-gathering, hay for the chooks (I filled the hanging layena feeder and gave the young wyandottes two half-ears of corn-on-the-cob and they just stood there and stared at me until I got them their orchard grass. Each of the cages deal with their hay differently: the young wyandottes eat most of theirs, the elder wyandottes mostly kick it around and scratch through it and rework it into various grass sculptures, Malvina uses it to make nests, and the Hamburgs spread theirs tidily around their run and very daintily eat the finest and tastiest bits while using the coarser parts as carpet.

(phone call, dammit, ran over on my lunch half-hour, oh, well, just have to move faster now, I guess).