Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[BlackBrookPoultry]

I don't neuter my dogs. I think they just do better health-wise. But if I did, I would wait until they were a year old, especially on a slow-maturing breed. We are considering getting a medium sized dog for my son. I will most likely have him neutered because 2 unaltered dogs in the house = marking territory. And it would be nice to be able to take a dog somewhere and not worry about it fighting with other intact dogs or trying to hump everything. Lol

 

[Hens and Roos]

Well forgot all about putting 3 guinea eggs in lockdown and when I realized I had them in the 2nd sportsmans I cringed when I opened it as I couldn't remember which day I put them in there. Just too much going on the last few days. Opened it up and one was hatched and another was just popping out of the shell, the third was a quitter. This will be the last of them due to neighbor losing their male guinea to a predator. I put over 30 eggs in this batch and only 4 were fertile with 2 alive keets.

A guy is coming in the morning from Abbotsford to buy the coop, fingers crossed he buys it. I won't be here as I have an appt with the GAL for Anellia in Eau Claire at 9(she's 10 months old and year permanency hearing is coming up and they are talking about finally just giving me guardianship without me having to fight the court for it) Tyler will be here to meet the guy and I give him the bottom dollar price for it so we will see how he does at salesmanship when I get home.

Talked with Anellias Soc worker on Monday for a few hours and it felt pretty good as she told me I was doing exactly what they want to see when having a child placed out of parents home. She said Anellia is showing complete signs of being raised in a safe, secure environment and she's showing good signs of that when they have came for their monthly home visits. I told her she's being raised the same exact way my children were raised, I just don't know what happened to my kids when they got older they just fell into bad things which I don't understand. She's so beautiful and I'm so thankful to God that she's come thru the addiction faze with no symptoms as of now. She's so darn smart its unbelieveable after having such a hard start at life. I'm just impressed with her mentality. Anyhow now that I'm talking about Anellia you are wondering why I haven't put any photos lately, well here's a few.


Anellia with his Fav Uncle Tyler

This past Sunday on our trip to Winona to visit my cousin. Photo is
order front to back, Dylan(1), Anellia(10mo) Justin(3) and Josh(8). These are my cousins
boys. Went down for Justins 3rd bday.

Taken Tuesday, look at those teeth. She has the 2 on the bottom but 4 more cutting thru right now.

As far an my opinion on neutering, I do it as close to 4 months as possible and no later than 6 months with dogs and cats.

Your talking about those Ayam Cemani chickens, I've seen those prices and it's just rediculous. $1500-5000 per chick. Now maybe I should start raising those chicks to sell psh. I had one hatch a few weeks ago that is ALL black, decided to keep it and see how it turns grows out for giggles.

Cute pictures! Glad to hear that she is doing well

 

[babylady4]

CS, get him nutered now so he gets his brains back. Intact males wander, and as far as I know it does not benefit the animal to keep it intact. The last thing we need are more unwanted litters of puppies.

 

[cuties]

Super sweet Stacy! And I am gladnto jlhear she is doing well


Cs, I would fix Theo now because I neuter my dogs/cats to help prevent those boy behaviors that are unappealing. The humping, marking, dominance, things like that. It has always worked for me the younger the better the affect. If you google, you can find all kinds of negative about doingit young and about waiting. It has always worked well for me personally this way. I have seen no ill effects on my dogs. And have generally been happy with my males temperament. We currently have 4 altered males living in our hpuse. Two of them are very strong willed breeds of dogs. We have very minimal issues with dominance. And have had no health issues with fixing them young

 

[wyoDreamer]

As for the neutering, we waited until our Irish Setter was over a year old to have him neutered. We talked about it with our vet and he agreed with us. No bad behaviors were the result of waiting. We waited because Irish Setters are slow growers and wanted to wait until the growth plates in his bones were set. We knew that being intact could make him wander if there was a female in heat within smelling distance, so we took precautions to prevent him from wandering off and making babies - 6 foot chain link fencing with a concrete base to prevent digging out. Trying to be a responsible dog owner unlike the neighbors who got two labs and let them run loose. I do think waiting made it a little harder on us, since we had to compete with the hormones for his attention, we had to be careful taking him anywhere and had to watch so he didn't run off.

An interesting note is that the vet we took the pup to when we bought him, agreed with us about wanting to wait until he was grown. That veterinarian was a really nice, older gentleman who was near retirement and said health-wise, it was good to wait until the dog was finished growing before removing those hormones from his system. The vet office hired a young, newly out of school veterinarian to eventually take over when he retired. We met with her for one appointment. The pup was about 6 months at that time and she was all over us to get him neutered. Her reasons were all about preventing unplanned litters, even though we explained that we did not own an intact female, he was not allowed to roam and he was in a secure run when not being supervised. She couldn't give us any health reasons for getting him neutered at a young age.

I don't know what the growth rate of a Great Pyrenees is, I would assume that they are slow growers also.

 

[chikenscratch]

Thanks for the opinions/input. The issue that I have is that Theo, a maremma, is a large breed and will not be done growing until around age 2. I don't care if he pees with his leg raised, he is an outdoor dog. I got him to be a guard dog, so I definitely want all of those instincts to kick in. We have him in a 6ft fenced area unless he is on a leash, so there will not be puppies popping up. I definitely don't want any humping, but he isn't doing that yet. My instincts tell me to wait for his bones to develop properly. I have noticed him trying to get himself in front of me or put his butt in front of me, but I correct the behavior with showing my dominance/correcting it while walking on a leash with a knee in the side/etc.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Our Irish Setter wasn't done growing until 2 either. He was a big dog for an Irish - 78 pounds. What we were waiting for was the growth plates in his leg bones. Our understanding is that after about a year old, dogs don't really grow that much taller - the bones are done growing in length and the growth plates harden. After that point, they put on muscle and bone mass. Now, I am not a dog growth expert, and all that info may be wrong, that is just our understanding.

 

[Sclark73]

I swear I have to have the worst luck of anyone out there. Something killed and ate the fricken legs off of my new Foley cockerel. So now once again I need a new cockerel. I'm so close to just throwing in the towel on chickens all together.

On plus side I'll have the money to buy one as I just sold my coop to a guy who drove from the other side of abbotsford for $500 cash.

 

[BayBay Peepers]

Glad to hear you sold your coop, but sorry to hear about your cockerel

 

[bigzio]

Afternoon All...monthly meeting at Camp tonight, so no hunting for me tonight.

Great job with your flock H&R...you always seem to have a good solid management plan going!

Waiting to clean the coops here. Way to much molting going on to worry about it right now...feathers are picked up daily though...don't want to feed the feather mites, I heard it helps to pick them up.

I put plastic around one of my pens every fall...it's the covered pen, and makes it nice for the flock, as well as me...no shoveling...and the nice dry straw bed allows the girls to spend time in the pen most days.

My other pen isn't covered, and I have to shovel that one. I can deal with one like this for now. I do plan to make some changes in the future, so it's easier in Winter.....and please don't say bring it on....I say...stay away!...LOL

bigz