Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[delisha]

ooooooo, chickie soup, thanks Jim! Now I know what I am making for game watching tonight. Well, full disclosure, it's actually stock from the turkey "parts" I saved from the New Year's bird. Great way to use the last of the garden carrots. Girls will enjoy all the peels, etc. I'm going to generate.

On the chookie front. Hope we get enough sun today to warm up my sun shed/winter workshop/spring seed starting shack. I have a chicken bottom to wash and it was zero when I got up and not warming up too fast. I FINALLY got poor little crockpot all healed up and actually growing feathers back on her bare butt and now Soup has a gunked up butt! Real fun with her since she has a full feather duster back there and not nearly as docile about being fooled with as Crocker. Got a feeling we are BOTH going to get a bath

ATTN CHOOKIE GURUS~QUESTION~ Ok, so, my mutt pullet Noodle (lg white chicken from a lg brown egg laying bantam sized tan eggs) is still laying really small eggs. Is this it? Is there any hope her eggs will get larger? It just looks so silly having this chook the size of my Aussie laying a robin egg!!!

Congrats on all the hatches!!! I simply love the cute chickie pics and they are very educational to those of us who have not gotten brave enough to catch the winter bater flu yet.

Everyone have a great weekend, thank you in advance for any help with the Noodle question and of course, GO PACK GO!

...............vickicrawlingbackintoherreclinerandunderherblankiewithacuppatilthesungetshigher...........................

I have had pullets lay the smallest eggs and later *size* up. Right now my Orpingtons are pretty small compared to the other eggs, however they are probably the same size as *small* store eggs. The shipped eggs I got were pretty small.




If you are getting pasty butt, and if you have smaller egg size if you are interested in Fermenting your feed, you might notice a change in two months. My yolks increased in size too, I no longer have pasty butt or all that poo on fluffy butts. When it got really cold I went back to dry feed, and within two weeks the dirty butts returned. ugh. I went back to Fermented feed. It does take time, it is a pain in the hinny, and it saves money. I fed Fermented Feed all last year for the first time. Doing my feed numbers, I saved 10.8 lbs of feed per bird last year compared to the year before. I am on a tight budget so the added saving makes me get off my butt and make it. My DH hates the smell when I take the top off, and I am so lazy that I keep it in the kitchen. I should move it to the back bathroom.

 

[CasieD]

delisha - how do you do your fermented feed??

I know there's a huge thread on here on how to do it, but could you give me the cliff notes version for winter fermenting?

 

[Terri O]

My DH hates the smell when I take the top off, and I am so lazy that I keep it in the kitchen. I should move it to the back bathroom.

Good morning (or night; as I worked all night and just finished a liver sausage sandwich with tomato and lettuce!---if I had a beer I would have had that too!)

Funny that your DH says that Deli. Mine does too! I had to move mine down next to the furnace in the basement and he says he can smell it when he goes down there. (even with the cover ON) I think is smells kinda like sourdough starter or maybe like sauerkraut...but not as cabbagey. I mixed it kinda loose yesterday and it was more messy but the meaties I got from you are doing very well and are growing slow but sure. I really wanted to get them butchered this week but I dont think they are heavy enough yet. I am going to weigh the smallest and the largest today to see how heavy they actually are. I think the cold is slowing them down even though they have a heat lamp to sit under. Gave them a half bale of hay yesterday that they could play in.

Cochins (at least the banties) that I have are still laying for me. Their egg is unmistakeable for sure. Talk about tiny! They have light 24/7 though; maybe that is the difference? It kind of drives me crazy cause they dont know morning from night so they lay at all times during the day. I am lucky that I have (yet another) broody in there so the eggs at least arent freezing.

Those sure are some cute chicks ladies! (dont know if any of the gentlemen have caught the hatching bug yet) I am resisting as hard as I can...the one broody that has eggs was off the other day and a duck took her place. I think it is the one wanted to hatch her own eggs! Maybe they will co-parent the chicks if there are any. Wouldnt that be the cutest thing ever? Mama hen and duck with assorted babies...only on my farm!

I think it is time for me to go and finish the chores. I stopped at the grocery store after work and picked up some things. I mostly went to get a loaf of the "Goodbye Gluten" bread. The company actually called me back to let me know where it was available in my area! It is really good! I got the multi-grain. Not cheap @ $5.59 a loaf so I wont be enjoying the fresh stuff often. It sure is nice to get it free from the animal-bread truck though!
So I fed horses when I got home and now the rest to do---I am OFF!
TerriOfeelingthepowerofthepullofthebed

 

[Terri O]

delisha - how do you do your fermented feed??

I know there's a huge thread on here on how to do it, but could you give me the cliff notes version for winter fermenting?

Cassie it's right on the first page or two of the thread I believe. TO

 

[CasieD]

Quote: Thanks, I'll go look.

Oh, and that sounds like a breakfast for champions there too! lol

 

[Amyable]

Nice job hatching Casie! 2 boys 1 girl Jaer, isn't autosexing grand?

Loved the pics Hurley! Especially the one with the chicks lined up nose to nose with your little!

All this hatching has me thinking ahead to my own birds, and now that I have a pair of WH ducks I can't wait to get ducklings from, I am wondering: do ducks need a body of water to mate? Can they do that on dry land? That might throw a damper on my March hatching plans...

I have been sprouting grains for my flock for a couple months, it's pretty easy and helps keep those yolks nice and orange thru winter. I just have one ice cream bucket that I soak the grains in overnight (oats, wheat, corn) then 4 2-gal buckets with little holes drilled in the bottoms. I transfer the soaked grains to a 'holey' bucket and rinse them twice a day. I start a new batch each morning. By the time all the buckets are full, the first batch is nicely sprouted and I take it out to the birds. They love it!

 

[Hurley]

Ooo, Welsh Harlequins. That is my favorite duck breed. Good luck with them! Hope to add some here some day, but trying my hand with TO's muscovys currrently. (2 weeks in, lots of dancing little embryos in there.)

Just got back in with DS3. Was going to take him out shopping today while DH had DS2 with him running to Chicago, but DH forgot to leave me a car seat.

That will be a problem if they try to call me in today. DS3 isn't a fan of winter, so we played a little while outside, chored the chix, but then he was cold and wanted to come in. Wanted to grab some new photos of the Iowa Blues today since it's relatively nice out, got a few photos and the camera said Change Battery. LOL, darn it, I'm just going back in the house and staying there.

Got a few photos, though, so going to peruse those and see if I got anything decent.

Lovely day out.

 

[delisha]

delisha - how do you do your fermented feed??

I know there's a huge thread on here on how to do it, but could you give me the cliff notes version for winter fermenting?

sure

I have a plastic bucket in front of my sink. I pour in 1/2 bucket of dry feeds(dry layer pellets, BOSS, Wheat, crushes flax, garlic, and ginger). I pour in 1/4 cup of upacv and cover the whole thing with warm water. It should be about 3/4 full. I give it a few hours and stir. Add water if needed. I don't keep it soupy, mine is the texture of oatmeal. After feeding, I add a scoop of dry mix and again cover with water. It takes a few days to get the fermentation going, but, I just feed the wet until the fermentation starts. They love the wet feed anyway.

Thats it.

 

[CasieD]

Quote: Thanks!

 

[vickiw]

these are today's eggs. Guess who laid the "bantam" on the left??? the "whopper" on the right is from my Black Star, Soup. She hasn't laid one that big since coming out of her molt. Cracked it to scramble and add to their evening mash because one end was soft and it contained a beautiful double yoker! Guess that explains what happened to yesterday's egg from her.





This is my mutt, Noodle at 21 weeks. Her and the rest of the girls are hangin' out in the greenhouse for a while today. You can see where I removed the floor blocks under her that the girls have turned into wallows. You can see Crockpot's bare butt as she is hunting for the dehydrated mealworms I hid in the dirt for the girls. Yes, I know, spoiled chooks.

Ok, so, now anyone have any guesses as to the mix in my mutt? Who, BTW has turned into a nice calm young lady. Guess the other girls had a good influence on her