Washingtonians

[JNB]

So I thought Id share a cute story
We have some new neighbors that are formerly "city" folks It a family with 6 kids all under the age of 8.. all so cute. The little boy who is the oldest Loves to come over and help me with chores.

He was over yesterday and was so thirsty so I told him to get a drink out of the hose. He looked at me like I was speaking gibberish.. So I said its OK.. that's how farmers get drinks I told him it would be the BEST water he ever tasted.. He tried it and LOVED it... So we finished up our chores and his Mom came over with his little sisters. She and I were standing talking and all of the sudden she gasped and her eyes got really big.. LIL she was looking at her kids.. Her son was telling his little sisters about the awesome tasting water and had all of them lined up and was teaching them how to drink out of the hose . The kids were loving it. Well come to find out Mom said that she can NEVER EVER get her kids to drink water . She had tried special cups.. flavoring it, bribing them etc... and here they were just lapping it up.

Another thing that happened during their visit that was cute.. My chickens are molting.. The 5 year old little girl was standing there just staring at my chickens. Pretty soon she looked up and asked "Do you vacuum your chickens??" I was taken back and said "No Why do you ask that" She said "Because I was thinkin you did an you are vacuuming those ones too much" she said this pointing at my 2 worst looking molting girls.. LOL


BTW... WELCOME NEWCOMERS.... AND BEST WISHES TO ALL !!

 

[VelvettFog]

Quote:
In my opinion, Obama care is going to make this worse. 30 million people who previously did not have insurance, will be covered by 'the rest of us' through our taxes.

There are two major problems with our current health care system.

First - Our current system is a 'pay for service' system. By that I mean, that every time you go to a doctor, or get a test done, the doctor gets paid. The doctor is incented to see you more often, not to make you better. If he/she 'heals' you right away, they loose out on income. But if they have you come back for a follow up, or they order additional tests, then they make more money. There is an alternative, called 'Episode of care', or 'Bundled payment' where a 'budget' (either annual for chronic illness like diabetes, or episodic, for things like knee replacements) is created. This budget is then spread across all medical providers involved with your care. If the providers can avoid complications (a list of Potentially Avoidable Complications - PACs for short - are also generated based on the patients past medical history) they receive a bonus. This type of payment system actually encourages the providers who are taking care of you to do two things. One - get you healthy, with the least number of visits/tests necessary, and two - make sure that you are doing your best to avoid those complications. The challenge here is to get providers to agree to this type of system, as they will argue amongst them selves as to who should get the biggest part of the budget - and how do we hold the patient accountable. If the patient's providers tell her to take her meds, and she doesn't the providers should not be punished. One proposed method is to require a non-conforming patient to pay a higher premium. There are several insurance payors already using this type of payment system, but the vast majority of them are small and own the hospitals, clinics and doctors that the covered patients see. Another advantage of the EOC (episode of care) system is that the data it provides helps us determine which doctors have the least amount of PAC (potentially avoidable complications). We can also determine which doctors had a higher number of patients in poor health (those patients will have a higher EOC budget). Dr's whose patients have higher EOC budget AND whose patients have a lower PAC rate - that's a **** good doctor.

Second - Pricing transparency. Right now many hospitals are at the mercy of their suppliers. For example a young lady that I was close to had a very serious car accident. As a result she needed to have her neck fused. The two metal rods and the 18 screws cost the hospital 94k, not to mention any of the costs involved with the surgery itself. These exact same screws, from the exact same manufacture, when used in the equine industry, cost veterinarians only 18 dollars each. Hospitals are at the mercy of their vendors, and we are at the mercy of those hospitals. We, as a nation, need to get transparent pricing in place in our health care system. Hopefully we can soon get to a point where if you need a knee replacement you can not only "price shop" but you will also be able to view the track record (success rate, and ability to avoid those complications) of both hospitals and doctors.

The United States spends 2.3 BILLION dollars on health care alone. If that is compared to the GNP of other countries in the word it would stand in the top 10. Consider another travesty - Drugs are cheaper in Canada than they are in the the USA. Why? Simply because our government allows it. Anyone familiar with Medicare's prescription drug program is keenly aware of that -- but did you know that the US government, according to law is not ALLOWED to negotiate prices with the drug companies -- those companies are allowed to set their prices to anything they want and Medicare will pay it.

 

[itsren]

Luna's loss has been much harder for me than all the others I have lost to dogs and other predators over the years. My chickens roam on over an acre of land and I can accept an occasional loss, but I expect it to be the less friendly chickens that spend more time in the woods or in the orchard. I never thought such a gruesome attack would happen in daylight right between the 2 coops and very near the house. The chickens that hang out near the coop are all very friendly, but Luna was the best. She was a big, fluffy lap-chicken who never wandered more than 15 feet from the coop unless she was following me.

Now that the neighbors have all gotten electric fences for their dogs after several raids on my property, the wild predator attacks are increasing - no dogs to scare the raccoons out of the greenbelts surrounding my property. I have lost 3 hens to non-dog predators since July, and only 1 in the prior 3 years. Before the electric fences went up, I lost at least 5 hens to dogs in 2.5 years.

That's a lot of attacks. So sorry you lost your favorite. Sounds like she was a lot like my little Drama. Drama's my big hug-a-bug and she follows me everywhere. I'd be heartbroken.

It was weird - I was driving to Enumclaw yesterday and I watched a hawk flying circles around a house. I thought how odd - huge fields all over the place and this hawk is circling a house. I'm guessing they had chickens, too. I was feeling bad for the owners and I don't even know if it got anything.

 

[itsren]

Quote:
Ha! Ha! Well, I'm not afraid to admit my downfalls.

Pun intended!
I wouldn't be either IF I had any!!!

Well, of course you don't! Bald is beautiful and yer pretty in pink!

I'll go hide now....

 

[itsren]

I am getting a little eggscited about the PNPA show in Salem. I found out last night that Salem has just made it legal to keep chickens in the city which may really help for those selling birds at the show. Also I was told I am being put in an island booth and that everybody going into the show will have to walk right past my space.

We ARE GONNA ROCK Salem with this show!!!!

Well, that's cool!

That probably explains why my mom said there were quite a few news stories about backyard flocks in Newberg for a while. She focused on the negatives and kept calling me worried about my having them around kids. For a while, I felt like I was having to do a sales pitch just to get her to come to terms with my having them. I had to reassure her over and over that I was cleaning up the poop, hosing things down, etc. After she came over and stayed with us in August and saw how they were cared for, she finally eased off and seems to be OK with them now.

 

[itsren]

I've found that the favorites always seem to be targeted first. Someone needs to Star-Trek-up forcefield technology and make possible domes that keep unwanteds out...

Yep! When that bird came down (hawk or owl) it was my white fluffy Drama it went after. It left a pile of white feathers in the yard. Thank goodness Drama's a heavy little chunk and it couldn't carry her.

 

[itsren]

I got my first egg from my RIR pullets today,they are my rooster DA flock. I hope to start hatching eggs soon from them. I also would like some easter eggers that lay blue eggs any advice on the best breed to start with for this project. My wife and daughter love the blue eggs.

 

[itsren]

I was giving her Pedialyte and she was really getting after it. In fact, I was getting a little worried she was drinking too much. Then I realized Pedialyte has salt in it and maybe that was making her thirsty. So I switched to water and she gobbled that up, too. Now I'm kinda worried she's had too much liquids and/or too much salt.

There's a product called "Sav-a-Chick" that is a solution for chickens that is similar to Pedialyte for people. Many feed stores will sell it in individual packets. http://www.savachick.com/

Purchased individually, it's inexpensive. I mix up a tiny bit at a time. You have to work the math on it, because, the packet explains how to mix the entire packet in it's entirety. For one bird - a full packet's worth of solution is too much. The mixed solution only lasts a day.

Sav-a-Chick does have salt in it, but it must be a tiny amount. From what I understand, salt is not good for chickens. Hopefully, more experienced people can confirm this.

 

[itsren]

Hi. For those two that I read that had raccoon trouble. I wanted to say I am very sorry to hear of the raccoon attack (hope your special hen survives - sending good thoughts) and also sorry for the loss of your dear Luna. It strikes close to home for me as I also have recently lost a hen from a raccoon. It was bizarre! Afternoon, sunny day, hens in a fenced yard against our house to do a little foraging for a few hours. I was in the house for only 20-30 minutes and on my way back out to check on things. When through the window I saw a raccoon in the yard with one of my hens trying to pull its dead headless body over the fence. I was so angry I ran through the house yelling at my DH about it. When we got outdoors the raccoon just starred us down. Unafraid! We live in the country but as the population grows and people feed them I think they get bolder. DH ran at it yelling so when he was 10 feet away it finally backed off so he could retrieve the dead chicken, poor Gemini. But then it kept coming back over and over again. I have been nursing my last hen (she was in shock even crowing like a cockerel) Betsy Barr Rock wasn't injured but is now all alone which is not so good. DH put a large mirror in her tractor run which helps her somewhat. She loves her reflection so spends a lot of time in front of it. Anyway, I feel your pain.

~Dee~

That's terrible. I'm sorry!

 

[itsren]

OK let me just throw out a little word to the wise to ALL looking to buy birds. NO matter who you are looking to buy from always check around / ask others privately what they know about the seller and thier birds. SADLY there are people who claim to be so great yet they have no issue selling less than healthy birds to unknowing people. I rarely sell birds but if it doesn't seem healthy I won't sell it AND I will stand behind EVERYTHING that I do sell !!!!