What did you do with your flock today?

[TropicalBabies]

This weather has stayed just out of reach for the last 2 days, it was suppose to give us a whirl but just has not come ashore. Flash flood watch and all but not a drop from the sky for the Westside yet. May have to set up sprinklers today... so close, yet so far. Bet if I washed my truck it would rain .. . 🌧. Surf has been lovely and loud though
Meanwhile back at the ranch

the lack of rain is obviously a crisis!
And does anyone know what kind of squash this is and the best way to cook it?

 

[ChicksnMore]

View attachment 3491451
This weather has stayed just out of reach for the last 2 days, it was suppose to give us a whirl but just has not come ashore. Flash flood watch and all but not a drop from the sky for the Westside yet. May have to set up sprinklers today... so close, yet so far. Bet if I washed my truck it would rain .. . 🌧. Surf has been lovely and loud though
Meanwhile back at the ranchView attachment 3491466the lack of rain is obviously a crisis!
And does anyone know what kind of squash this is and the best way to cook it?View attachment 3491467

No idea on the squash but they sure look yummy! Love the horses

 

[ChicksnMore]

Took an extra long walk today. Our old neighbor has trees and shrubs in bloom all along his fence line. Had to take pictures.

He's in the University area and the college bought up all the homes around him. Our old house is now a parking lot. But they put landscaped lots to either side of his house when he refused to sell. Just lovely

 

[TropicalBabies]

Took an extra long walk today. Our old neighbor has trees and shrubs in bloom all along his fence line. Had to take pictures. View attachment 3491557He's in the University area and the college bought up all the homes around him. Our old house is now a parking lot. But they put landscaped lots to either side of his house when he refused to sell. Just lovely View attachment 3491559

Are those Mexican Gold's or Yellow Tecoma's? Juuuuust loooovely.

Hard when things change. I mourn the old days but grateful I have memories of a slower time ♡ I'm sure my kids and grandkids will think the same.

 

[Smokerbill]

View attachment 3491451
This weather has stayed just out of reach for the last 2 days, it was suppose to give us a whirl but just has not come ashore. Flash flood watch and all but not a drop from the sky for the Westside yet. May have to set up sprinklers today... so close, yet so far. Bet if I washed my truck it would rain .. . 🌧. Surf has been lovely and loud though
Meanwhile back at the ranchView attachment 3491466the lack of rain is obviously a crisis!
And does anyone know what kind of squash this is and the best way to cook it?View attachment 3491467

I think they are birdhouse gourds.

https://gardenerspath.com/plants/annuals/grow-birdhouse-gourds/

 

[TropicalBabies]

I think they are birdhouse gourds.

https://gardenerspath.com/plants/annuals/grow-birdhouse-gourds/

Bravo! Great find. I like them even more now that I don't have to cook them but can make things out of them!! Most exciting!!
Big Mahalo @Smokerbill !

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

I have a new one out in my run, she is only about 10-11 weeks old. She is one that I got for the only chick I had hatch, a Black Australorp, I’m not 100% sure of her age but at least in that range. Anyway, the first day I had them out of their kennel area, I knew I would have to put them up for the night. So I go out there a little early but the solar light I have at the end of the run was already on. She managed to stick her head into the fence and through the 1inch netting. We have had this down over the the fence since the first 18 were about their age without issue. But we think she was trying to get to the light…which is where her head was. She had her mouth open and eyes closed and was not moving. I lifted her up a little to see if I could pull her out, I wasn’t even sure if she was still alive, and luckily she moved for me. I managed to get her out and she just fell. I left her be while I rounded up the others so she could breath. I picked her up and her neck immediately went all funny on her. Her head was just setting on the right side of her. She couldn’t straighten it out. I put her inside the house for the night but in like 20 min she was fine and was holding her head right. She gave me a scare for sure. I have to trim that netting know. The idea though was to keep rabbits from sticking their heads in or them eating all the herbs on the outside of the run. Oh well, they can have it all as long as they don’t kill themselves.

They can do the craziest of things can't they! And look like they are near death then perk right up...sometimes.
Glad she's ok!

I gave up my garden to protect my babies. It's been warmer these days, so i take my morning coffee down to the enclosure, play some Liberace while i clean, water and feed them. I let them free range while doing my chores and they found all the dandelions before i had a chance to harvest them for tea and jelly. Love my stinkers!

OMGeeze I LUV it!!! U better than me!
They kept eating my lambs ear...and i knew no way I could protect the 1' raised beds...so their run got a courtyard lol! No more roamin the back yard til winter then they can have all the raised beds but one for garlic!

Worked on my run today till I couldn't work no mo'! Got all the framing in place on one of the walls, so it's now ready to hang the hardware cloth... with band aids close at hand.
View attachment 3489547View attachment 3489548View attachment 3489549

Oh u workin hard too! Looks so good!
Doesn't it feel amazing to get so much accomplished!?!
I took the long lightweight pallet our aluminum 3 fencing panels came on from the windstorm and notched out some places on it to connect for the roofin!
I'm so close.to being done i can taste it!

Today again I took Sweety out and let her peck around in the Barn lot. She mostly stayed around me till it was time to go in.This time I took a pic of her. View attachment 3489738

She's such a cutie!!!

Remember the ongoing mole battle? The score is now Moles, 0, Cat 2. Sam left a frozen burrito sized mole behind the truck, and
The back half of a tree squirrel under the boat. He also threw up a huge fur ball that looked like an undigested owl pellet, with all kinds of assorted critter parts. No wonder he didn't eat all his food yesterday. He's been earning his keep.
Velma got to play outside again with warmer weather today, and tomorrow. I've been preoccupied with planning and making some of the food beforehand for a ladies tea this weekend, with over 100 signed up to attend. If I don't check in until next week....
Haven't had anymore poached eggs lately, so maybe the culprit quit. I hope so. Everytime I check the nesting box, Pepper is right there soon after I open it, but she won't let me touch her. Maybe afraid she's going to get treated for prolapse with a bath and other attention she'd rather not have.

Luv it when the cats do their job!!!
u r gonna be busy for sure - 100!?! Wow!
How are you doing with healin?!
my Lizzy is hesitant to come to me too now
...afraid I'll try to give her a calcium pill im sure!

Poor Lizzie, she's certainly in the wars, isn't she? Fab roo you have there for staying alongside her ❤
It could well be the infection she had earlier in the year, some respiratory infections do cause soft shells for the rest of the hen's reproductive life, Infectious Bronchitis being one of the worst offenders. Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done about it -that I'm aware of. As long as she is managing to pass the egg and it's not leaving anything behind to propagate any infection in the reproductive tract, it shouldn't cause her major issues. Just watch out for prolapse. When she has a soft shell phase, I'd be inclined to still give her a calcium supplement - and an Epsom salt bath if she seems to be straining - as it will help her pass the soft-shelled egg by improving muscle function in the short term. You can stop the calcium when her eggs are back to normal.
Another possibility is that her eggs are not sitting in the shell gland long enough. It takes a hen approximately 26 hours to fully form an egg from releasing the yolk to it coming out fully shelled. It sits for periods in different parts of the reproductive tract for surrounding the yolk with albumin (the egg white), surrounding the yolk and white with membrane (what you see with a soft-shelled egg) and finally in the shell gland where the shell is deposited. Some hens just don't retain the egg in the shell gland for long enough for a shell to form. It can just be a temporary issue and resolves naturally once the hen has been laying for 6 months up to a year in heritage breeds. Unfortunately, some hens never get things in sync and will always lay soft shells. It also tends to happen more in older layers nearing the end of their egg laying career. Again, there isn't anything you can do to stop it other than preventing the hen laying with a contraceptive implant.

I hope Lizzy has recovered from her hanging ordeal. It sounds awful.

yeah its very possible...she being Satin bantam she doesn't lay regularly anyway so hard to tell.
today she laid a large egg but thin shell and doesn't feel smooth at all...very rough all over. When she first started laying few months back she would have calcium deposits here and there. But the past few if they have a shell at all are weird like this one today.

Took an extra long walk today. Our old neighbor has trees and shrubs in bloom all along his fence line. Had to take pictures. View attachment 3491557He's in the University area and the college bought up all the homes around him. Our old house is now a parking lot. But they put landscaped lots to either side of his house when he refused to sell. Just lovely View attachment 3491559

Oh how gorgeous!!!
DH won't buy anything but flowering cherry trees with white blooms lol so I don't get to see much color! Those are Beautiful!

 

[Nomadicus]

I'm not sure what I did with them, I think it is how they ran over me. At least 5 times a week I take a gallon can of scratch out for 90 or so and pandemonium breaks loose. They surround me and it's all I can do to wade through them knowing what awaits them. Knee deep in impatient chickens is a job hazard.

 

[FBMcrazy8]

I have ducklings hatching in the next day or so and hopefully some Turkeys. I am now down to 3 of them. I hope at least 2 hatch so I don’t have a lonely Turkey. I can’t remember if I said it on here but I had 2 of my chickens eggs not hatch. I check on them knowing they had internally pipped but they hadn’t broken through the shell yet and I really wanted to know if they were at least still alive. And no, no movement. I decided to open up the air cell and look and see if I could tell what happened. Both of them had cross beak.

I also decided 2 days ago to reach out and feel my goats stomach, just to see if I could see what was going on. And sure enough there is at least a baby, I’m guessing maybe 2 but I have no idea. Then yesterday I reached out touched her tail area to see if I could feel the ligaments and though I’m not 100% sure, but I’m almost positive that if they aren’t gone, they are close. Her utter is getting big, and she is just moving much slower. So now, I am going to be adding a little stall area to their house so she can be separated. I had to fix their feeder cause the wire I used was useless to them. They ripped that apart. This stuff they won’t be able to though cause I had to use bolt cutters to cut it to size.

Anyway, really busy and now that the wind has died, I can get some stuff done. Including planting my garden.

 

[PopoMyers]

In the middle of a thunderstorm and heavy rain, rain for the next hour here at 8:30 pm. These are far and few in between. Velma graduated to the outside pen, with her tote shelter, but hopefully she is not frightened by this crazy storm. She's 5 weeks old, and just about fully feathered, with a little fluff hanging on the tips. It was a pretty, sunny, 73 today. @Gammas Bearded Babies , thanks for asking. I am slowly regaining strength, flexibility and mobility, and working hard on therapy so I can be done sooner than 6 months. I'll have occupational therapy in starting June. Also, the head count is up to 107. My friend and I agree that it's like catering a wedding! So glad I have the time to prep some things at home. @TropicalBabies less than 2 weeks and I'll be over your way. Hope we can meet up. You're on the leeward side. Have fun with those gourds!