Washingtonians

[KMHunter]

Well I just skimmed through the last 150 posts and I hope I did not miss anything.

Sorry to all the people that have lost birds lately

. It really seems that these last few weeks or so have been really heavy with preditors. As you know I my self have been looseing quite a few girls and yes they alway tend to take my favorites first (kids say I am not aloud to call any my favorite untill the run I am building is finnished). Just the other day my SIL and I watched a hawk come and try to take one of my chicks, but her mom chased the hawk away and baby was hiding very well. Then Saterday I went out in the morning and one of my male turkeys was on the roof of the coop, he never goes up there unless there has been a coyote running around. So we did a head count and everyone is accounted for! Thank goodness.

As far as my flock for next year, I have decided that one breed I want is......Salmon Faverolles

I would really like to have myself about 3-4 hens and have to have myself a "Fudge" Roo!
If any one knows where I can get some hatching eggs that would be great. I know some one on here raises Faves, but I don't know how far away they are.

One other thing, I figured I would put this on here before I put it on Craigslist.
I have a clock for sale, but not just any clock this was built by a man named Jimmy Collier (this is the reason why my farm is called Collier Clocks Farm). He was an amazing man that built everything from clocks to race cars from scratch. If you do a Google search and read about him you will fall in love with him.
I have so much info on this man I could go on for ever, He is the reason that Evergreen speedway is what it is today. It used to be a dirt horse track, but Jmmy wanted a place to race his Model T and so he went to the Snohomish city councle and convinced them to turn it into a paved race track.
I would like to sell this clock to someone who will appriciate it in every way. If you want any info on the clock let me know. If not no biggy I just wanted to share it's beauty with ya'll before it goes.

That's a really cool clock!

Just so you know, since you are considering Favs, they don't integrate verry well with mixed flocks. Unless they are hatched together. If you broody hatch and let het raise them and introduce them into the flock that might work. They are pretty timid. Get picked on alot! Which is why I donated two of my layers to you.

Didn't know how much you knew about them.
Cloverleaf raises and sells them, usually has a waiting list for eggs. If I hatch some good chicks. I would be willing to sell some eggs. But since mine are unproven, I will have to wait to see what mine produce first.

 

[justbugged]

Quote: This is a very interesting idea. I have the oats. In fact if anyone wants some whole oats to try this you would be welcome to come get some. I bought a 50lb bag of whole oats awhile ago. I had planned on getting it to sprout, but that didn't work out as well as I wanted it too.

We have had some fairly good clues that something has been living in or behind the greenhouse for most of the summer. I still don't know exactly what it is. DH got a glimpse of it earlier today. He is fairly sure that it's not a opossum. I thought it was a opossum after several of the plants in the greenhouse were eaten clear down to the soil. I also haven't seen any rat or mouse dropping anywhere in the greenhouse, and none of the chicken feed has been messed with. So I am now rather confused as to what it is. I do know that the nasty little dogs have been trying to catch it for most of the summer, so far obviously none of them has managed to get it.

 

[RainyDayChicken]

...

Today was my first 2 egg day! I got 1 brown and 1 blue!
[/quote

 

[Nikki99]

Ya know I guess we are really lucky, we aren't bothered by them, but, I know what your talking about, have you ever seen Billy the exterminator??? OMG!! He has some really jerky racoons!!

I love Billy the exterminator!! Ya, some of those little buggers are nasty!! Kinda makes me laugh when I see something so small and cute looking that acts so evil! Lol

I grew up in Goldendale, would love to end up on the east side again someday...I miss the Gorge.

My FIL lives there and some of our best friends grew up there. Small world.

for everyone who likes ducks:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/rescued-ducks-encounter-w_n_1943208.html

This was on fb the other day, so cute!

Here's a picture of one of my Buckeye Cockerels hanging out with our Togg/Nubian wether. He actually sat with the goat for most of the afternoon, when I looked out of my kitchen window and saw it, I had to sneak up and take the picture cause my camera sucks! I so admire the peeps on here that take such awesome pictures of their flocks!

Aww, that's adorable!! Two of our hens have discovered that there's good stuff that gets stuck in the goats hair, like seeds and grasses, the goats don't seem to mind them pecking at them as long as they're gentle.

Hi all!

I have not visited in a while, and now I'm 200 posts behind.

I have been busy studying for my Enrolled Agent Tax exams with the IRS, and this morning I passed the second test (I did the first one 13 days ago) - one to go!

I was feeling all happy about passing the exam (in Puyallup at 7:30 am), came home and saw a horrific scene in my backyard that took away any good feeling I had.

The kids were playing video games and had let the chickens out, but ignored the dogs who were stil in their crates. I yelled at the kids, followed the dogs out to check on all the waterers and feeders and I saw Luna, the white sussex lying in the yard near the coop where she likes to hang out, neck twisted and rolled partway under her, and much of her neck and shoulders and part of a wing eaten away with bones sticking out, and she was still breathing!!! I yelled for my husband who came out and finished her off. Then I yelled at my kids for letting the chickens out without their guard dogs. I'm thinking it was a raccoon. A few weeks ago I found another hen in the same area, injured in the same spot. That injury was minor in comparison. I think I had scared off whatever the predator was there when the attack started, but the hen must have died of a hear attack. Poor Luna was still alive and it is awful to think of what the poor girl must have endured. She was such a sweet hen. I still have 10 roosters, but my supply of hens is going down.

Congratulations on your test! That's really exciting.
I'm very sorry to hear about your sweet Luna.

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 !!!!

Oh man, so that's where I went wrong!! I didn't get the scoop on you before I bought the birdies!! LOL. Just kidding! I'm very glad I got to meet you and we love our girls....they don't love us, but we love them!

They are really cute, you can tell they are bonded to one another. They run around all day glued to each others sides and throw a holy $%&* fit when they get separated.

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 !!

OMGoodness I love this story! So cute and so funny! Kids are really good at making you laugh!

Well, we've brought Salma over to my apartment just to give us all a break from the many, many animals and people over at my BF's. I haven't tried to feed her or give her water in several hours, so that is what I'm going to do now. We have assessed our current finances and there is simply no money for a vet. She's on antibiotics, I'm keeping the eye clean and putting Neosporin on the cut above it. I'm force feeding her as much as I reasonably can. Beyond that, there's nothing we can do but worry our heads off. I hope she makes it. She is the only one of our chickens who is more like a pet to us than livestock. The smartest and the only one who comes up to us even when we don't have food. Why did the raccoon have to attack her?!?

I'm sorry to hear about Salma, that's horrible. I hope she pulls through this. Good luck and thanks for keeping us updated.

Dawn explained how to fix it a few pages back. It is in the preferences for your profile.

Yep, I saw it, I'm on it now that I'm all caught up!

 

[mikeyb]

OK, now put your thinking caps on and help me out here.
I got a great roo from CL, a JERSEY GIANT in soft grey. He's really mild mannered. BUT...I need a name for this youngen. So here's my thinking.
He's a young gun so Westerns come to mind, so after thinking long and hard about it I came up with the following name.

Lash th-roo. (now for some of you, you probably don't recall and some know not of what I speak.

WAYYYYYYYYYYYY back in the day, as a kid I use to go to the movies on a Sat for the matinee. Usually started about 11 am or 1 pm depending on the movie house. Could see the movie, get a fountian coke and a box of popcorn for just 25 cents. (I did say way back).
Any whoo, you would also see short subjects, a serial and the movie and sometimes it was a double feature!
Lash LaRue was the hero of western movies. His thing was a 12' bull whip he use against the bad guys, hense the name Lash. Whew, I really had to dig deep to get that info outta my memory.
So, give me some names for this youngen, please.

 

[TerrorBird]

Quote: Yep, I can be loud when it counts! The sounds she was making told me that she was actively tussling with something so I had to announce my presence. Lyle actually came running up the hill a bit, all puffed up, but he calmed down when he saw it was me.

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

Well, after my last post, Salma still wasn't eating and drinking on her own. We put some sugar in her water and had more luck getting that down her. Poor baby, her first taste of sugar. After that she was slightly more energetic and we crammed a few tiny bits of egg and feed into her beak and massaged it down her throat. Since I wiped out the goo in her eye and started rinsing it with saline periodically, it looks a lot better. And she's on the two-year-old antibiotics, for better or worse. Maybe there was internal damage we can't detect. I thought she'd either get better or die pretty quickly, but she seems to be hanging on. Don't want to spend all this time with so much stress for all of us only to wind up having to cull her in the end. For now I'm optimistic enough to keep trying. She's resting now, but before we go to bed I was thinking I'd blend up some plain yogurt, one of her own eggs, some carrot, and a little bit of water and put that in the eyedropper. Maybe a teensy bit of sugar. Do y'all think that's a good idea?

I think you are doing a great job helping Salma. I am nursing Betsy Barr Rock so I know how frustrating it is when they don't seem to feel better after much effort. Today Betsy actually was drinking the broth off the feed I put in a bowl with warm water for her. She enjoyed it more than anything else lately. Stopped eating her favs like meal worms, cooked eggs, etc. days ago. She nibbles a bit on her dry feed but not enough. She won't eat yogurt. She has been eating the dirt out of her chard potted plant. So now she poos dirt mixed with grass and water mostly. Gross huh! Maybe something wrong with her plumbing? I put some krill oil in her feed broth hoping it would help her. Thought it would help her throat/crop. Kept hearing gurgling in there so concerned about that now. She seems pretty much OK otherwise. But sometimes after she eats she gets a pale face, hunches up and closes her eyes a few seconds on & off. Then she snaps out of that and goes back to pecking some grass. That is another reason I wonder if it isn't a sour crop or ? I put a fresh organic beet with greens out of our garden in a plastic bottle with water in it. She was pecking & enjoying eating the beet greens. Also put a carrot and a lettuce plant in the water bottle so she could peck those leaves too. But she seemed to prefer the beet greens. Tomorrow I will try some canned tuna but doubt she will eat that. I know she needs the extra protein cause she is growing back feathers from her molt. Anyway, I visit her a zillion times a day in her tractor run it seems making sure she is eating something and drinking. So far pretty good but hoping for better for Betsy & Salma as well. Yeh, it really sucks the raccoon attacked your fav hen. This may sound bad but I think you will understand it when I tell you I was glad the raccoon killed Gemini and not Betsy. Betsy has always been our Selma so to speak. But even so it sucks to only have one hen now. Hang in there and keep up the good work. Hoping the quieter atmosphere will help restore Selma soon. Quietly resting is good for her no doubt. All my best to you and Salma.

~Dee~

Thank you so much for the words of encouragement! Sounds like you've been through even more than what we're experiencing. Good luck.

 

[RainyDayChicken]

OK, now put your thinking caps on and help me out here.
I got a great roo from CL, a JERSEY GIANT in soft grey. He's really mild mannered. BUT...I need a name for this youngen. So here's my thinking.
He's a young gun so Westerns come to mind, so after thinking long and hard about it I came up with the following name.

Lash th-roo.  (now for some of you, you probably don't recall and some know not of what I speak.

WAYYYYYYYYYYYY back in the day, as a kid I use to go to the movies on a Sat for the matinee. Usually started about 11 am or 1 pm depending on the movie house. Could see the movie, get a fountian coke and a box of popcorn for just 25 cents. (I did say way back).
Any whoo, you would also see short subjects, a serial and the movie and sometimes it was a double feature!
Lash LaRue was the hero of western movies. His thing was a 12' bull whip  he use against the bad guys, hense the name Lash. Whew, I really had to dig deep to get that info outta my memory.
So, give me some names for this youngen, please.

How about Sheriff Jersey this shows his power and his young gun.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Quote: Yeah, that is the only thing. It was apraised at $6,200. but I figured a more realistic price is $4,000. It actually has a 350 turbo transmision in the head of it that runs the whole thing. These things are just amazing. When we moved in here the shop was packed full of machineing "machines" and tools, some of them were so old there were even hand crank tools. Just cool stuff!
WOW now that would be an AWESOME place to hang outfor a while just to drool over all the cool old items.

 

[drumstick diva]

I think tht two year old Baytril is too old to be of use,especially if it has been stored at high temperature, dampness etc. I don't think it is working and that is why Salma isn't better. I know what money problems are like. You seem to be doing all the right things - so don't blame yourself. I hope she gets better.