I wish I had a lot more land too @TJAnonymous! Oh what I could do! The only thing I'm doing in prep for the chicken food shortage is trying to make more room in the freezer (sheesh, that is my life story!) so I can get a couple extra bags in there. LOL, but seriously, that's why I got the pressure canner so I could get rid of all the broth in there, that made room for 1 more bag of food. I also save every bit of veggie scraps for the birds now instead of it going in the compost. I put like ends of cukes & celery in a baggie in the fridge & a couple times a week I chop it up & it goes to the birds. They also get all the leftovers from the broth making. It's not much, but it's all I got!
What did you do in the garden today?
- Thread starter Dara77
- Start date
Good morning all. So the weather is heading back to Spring time mode. I finally got through to Jung seeds and confirmed the shipping date for my seed potatoes. Yay! Got some news that the avian flu was detected in Dighton, Massachusetts. It’s not on the APHIS site yet. Apparently there’s a 48 hour lag there. My neighbors are still free ranging their chickens and that concerns me as they are all over where the wild turkeys graze. I asked DD to check the local Facebook pages to see if there is anything listed there. She mentioned that a number of local animal control officers are posting about it. That’s good so hopefully the neighbors will get the news. My starts are doing pretty good, but it’s way too soon to even think about putting them outside. I’m hoping to get another section of my split rail fence installed today. It’s been slow going but I should be able to get this completed within a week. There are a boatload of large stones in the dirt and my 70 year old muscles 
make it slow going. But I’ll get it done. I’m determined to get my little hoop row cover over one of the garden beds today. Fingers crossed 
.
make it slow going. But I’ll get it done. I’m determined to get my little hoop row cover over one of the garden beds today. Fingers crossed .
Mc Murrey?
Oh geez - I sure hope not!
They are in Hamilton county.
Yeah, I agree on the freezer space. I'm putting in a 6 ft x 10 ft walk-in cooler in my barn. It will allow me to store more animal feed and extra eggs. That's another project I'm about to start in the next 2 weeks.
I bet both McMurray and Hoovers are sweating bullets right now.
In 2015, HPAI led to the euthanization of 34 million birds in Iowa. The dominoes fell from there: 8,500 jobs were lost, and Iowa’s poultry industry faced a total economic loss of $1.2 billion. Iowa leads the nation in egg production, with more than 60 million chickens, and is seventh in turkey production, with about 12 million turkeys across the state.
Heck they got me sweating bullets because I still need to get a few more pullets from TSC.
@TJAnonymous glad you're all right!
Windy today, will water in a bit. I ran out first thing to feed and water the chickens and they were all over me. Jumped up on my wrist, walking all over my feet. It's pretty hilarious how friendly they get when they want something. I need to rig a larger waterer and get my feed fermentation going.
To those who want to know. I have used, with tremendous success in the past, a five gallon bucket. I had a two-three foot piece of PVC, about an inch in diameter so it was stiff pipe, that I used to stir and here's the quick version.
Fill five gallon bucket one third of the way full with feed. I've fermented store bought pellets and milled grain before with equal success. Add enough water until it just begins to cover but not quite. Then add two to three generous "glugs" of apple cider vinegar with the mother in it. Stir thoroughly and leave in a warm (above 60F is best) dark place with the lid on but not sealed. It needs to burp. I think they might make lids for this, but I haven't looked. Check it and stir once or twice a day and keep adding water to get it nice and damp but not soupy. Thick like oatmeal, not thin like soup. It will begin to smell and bubble after a few days or less depending on how hot it is. The hotter the bucket, the faster the ferment up until it gets tooo hot. I can't remember the top cutoff temp. It's not a "bad" smell. Just a smell of fermentation. almost sweet and sour at the same time. Can't miss it when you smell it. Now fill the bucket up some more, no more than 3/4 of the way full because over that it puffs up too much (oh yeah, it expands considerably) and gets too hard to stir.
Feed directly out of the bucket. As you take fermented food out, throw more food in to keep the ferment running, keep adding more water to maintain consistency, but you don't need more ACV unless you get a ruined batch and have to start over.
There's a whole thread on here somewhere, hundreds of pages long, that has more details if you want them, this is just a "primer" if you will.
@TJAnonymous glad you're all right!
Windy today, will water in a bit. I ran out first thing to feed and water the chickens and they were all over me. Jumped up on my wrist, walking all over my feet. It's pretty hilarious how friendly they get when they want something. I need to rig a larger waterer and get my feed fermentation going.
To those who want to know. I have used, with tremendous success in the past, a five gallon bucket. I had a two-three foot piece of PVC, about an inch in diameter so it was stiff pipe, that I used to stir and here's the quick version.
Fill five gallon bucket one third of the way full with feed. I've fermented store bought pellets and milled grain before with equal success. Add enough water until it just begins to cover but not quite. Then add two to three generous "glugs" of apple cider vinegar with the mother in it. Stir thoroughly and leave in a warm (above 60F is best) dark place with the lid on but not sealed. It needs to burp. I think they might make lids for this, but I haven't looked. Check it and stir once or twice a day and keep adding water to get it nice and damp but not soupy. Thick like oatmeal, not thin like soup. It will begin to smell and bubble after a few days or less depending on how hot it is. The hotter the bucket, the faster the ferment up until it gets tooo hot. I can't remember the top cutoff temp. It's not a "bad" smell. Just a smell of fermentation. almost sweet and sour at the same time. Can't miss it when you smell it. Now fill the bucket up some more, no more than 3/4 of the way full because over that it puffs up too much (oh yeah, it expands considerably) and gets too hard to stir.
Feed directly out of the bucket. As you take fermented food out, throw more food in to keep the ferment running, keep adding more water to maintain consistency, but you don't need more ACV unless you get a ruined batch and have to start over.
There's a whole thread on here somewhere, hundreds of pages long, that has more details if you want them, this is just a "primer" if you will.
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