Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[irishrovr]

I'm cooking up a pot of beans for the chickaroos along with some of the veggies that were starting to get a little iffy in the fridge. Threw in some oatmeal for good measure. While it's on the stove I dropped almost a dozen eggs on the counter so I just added them into the mix. Gonna be goooood eating in the coops tomorrow!

 

[irishrovr]

As soon as the stock pot is out of the dishwasher I'm cooking up a big pot of split pea soup with ham and carrots so the hubs doesn't get jealous that I'm cooking for the chickens!

 

[bigzio]

Back from the meeting at Camp. We had a good turnout tonight and quite a few things were accomplished.

Good to hear the peeps will be in a warm place G G ...they will be happy there for sure.

Welcome wobbles....I'm not familiar which part of the state oxford is?

Yep, our flock gets quite a few tasty leftovers here that just don't get eaten fast enough Irish...we have stainless steel dog bowls for their treats, and the minute I'm outside with one of those silver dishes , they come a runnin!
The stainless steel really cleans up nice after each use too!

bigz

 

[birds4kids]

Twice this week I tried to go to Menards for roofing for a meat chicken tractor, the first time the truck sprayed coolant everywhere, failed clamp but I went ahead and replaced the hose and clamps yesterday, let it run a few minutes then and again today before heading out, 2 miles from home a transmission line fitting fails and pumps all the transmission fluid out everywhere. The fitting is $6-7 but NOBODY has one in stock, and the fluid is $6-8 a quart and I bet it lost at least 6 quarts, plus a $100 tow bill but the towtruck came amazingly fast.

On the plus side I bought a car for a fair weather driver last fall and the truck waited till spring to act up rather than winter when I was dependent on it. Car can not be driven in icy conditions on the original high performance tires so the truck breaking down in February would have been a LOT worse than now.

Oh and the flock of 5 silkies gave us 4 eggs today and the "layer flock" of 3 CCL, 1 EE, 1 OE, 1 Delaware, gave us 6. 10 eggs from 11 birds given that mix of breeds is great.

Meat birds are like 5 weeks old and NEED to get outside, luckily there are only 11 and the kiddie pool in the garage is doing the trick(barely), well covered of course.

 

[irishrovr]

Back from the meeting at Camp. We had a good turnout tonight and quite a few things were accomplished.

Good to hear the peeps will be in a warm place G G ...they will be happy there for sure.

Welcome wobbles....I'm not familiar which part of the state oxford is?

Yep, our flock gets quite a few tasty leftovers here that just don't get eaten fast enough Irish...we have stainless steel dog bowls for their treats, and the minute I'm outside with one of those silver dishes , they come a runnin!
The stainless steel really cleans up nice after each use too!

bigz

Oxford is in Marquette County south of Westfield.

I use ice cream buckets for chicken treats and when I have a white bucket in hand they mob me until I dump it out for them. I have to be careful not to step on toes or get tripped up on the way to their feeding spot!

 

[irishrovr]

Twice this week I tried to go to Menards for roofing for a meat chicken tractor, the first time the truck sprayed coolant everywhere, failed clamp but I went ahead and replaced the hose and clamps yesterday, let it run a few minutes then and again today before heading out, 2 miles from home a transmission line fitting fails and pumps all the transmission fluid out everywhere. The fitting is $6-7 but NOBODY has one in stock, and the fluid is $6-8 a quart and I bet it lost at least 6 quarts, plus a $100 tow bill but the towtruck came amazingly fast.

On the plus side I bought a car for a fair weather driver last fall and the truck waited till spring to act up rather than winter when I was dependent on it. Car can not be driven in icy conditions on the original high performance tires so the truck breaking down in February would have been a LOT worse than now.

Oh and the flock of 5 silkies gave us 4 eggs today and the "layer flock" of 3 CCL, 1 EE, 1 OE, 1 Delaware, gave us 6. 10 eggs from 11 birds given that mix of breeds is great.

Meat birds are like 5 weeks old and NEED to get outside, luckily there are only 11 and the kiddie pool in the garage is doing the trick(barely), well covered of course.

10 out of 11 is super!

Sorry about your truck! In the middle of a cold snap or a snowstorm could have been a lot worse.

 

[Celtic Chick]

Staci, so good to hear from you! How are the new digs & that cute grand baby?

Kristi, the smaller the breed of rabbit, the shorter their lifespan. Just so you know. Sounds like Irish has quite a few to choose from, as well as cages too.

Jim, I agree with cs, you might have to make a batch (or 5) of those rolls for the bash. Yum!

GG, if you can keep them inside for 2 or 3 weeks, then they will be plenty ready for a move out to the garage after that. Jim broods hundreds of chicks at a time so they have the added body heat to help keep them warm, along with a massive brooder hood. He has quite the impressive setup.

Welcome to the newbies! Hope you like it here. And congrats to the new chicks.

I don't remember who asked as it was quite a few pages back, but someone was asking about coops in winter. If you have a well insulated and properly ventilated coop, then you should not need to heat your coop other than a heated waterer base to keep the water from freezing. Most chickens, especially the large breeds, are much more tolerant of cold than they are of heat. I have a large uninsulated coop with a room in it that I hang a heat lamp in over the roosts. If they so choose, they can go in there to sleep or warm up, but the majority of my birds do not choose to. I have 2 seabrights (very small birds) who spend a lot of time under the lamp when it is real cold out. As long as you, as cs said, securely attach the lamp (more than once) and be sure to regularly dust down the lamp & the areas around it, you should not have any issues. I have a cage on mine to keep the bulb from falling out of it if bumped. The lamp is also pretty close to the ceiling & offset so as to avoid it getting knocked by an unruly bird. I also have one hung over my 5 gallon waterers, plugged into a thermocube, to help keep the top of the waterer from freezing shut. Nothing worse than trudging out in the freezing cold with 10 gallons of water & not being able to get the waterer open.

I have used heat lamps in my coops for 14 years and have never had an issue with them. You just have to be attentive and make sure you have addressed all the potential problems beforehand. If you go to TSC, they usually put them on sale for $10 for a 2 pack of them so they really aren't expensive, but they are expensive to run, as are most heating sources. But as I said, if your coop is insulated, you should not need to heat your coop. If you do decide to use a heat source, do the same as you would with chicks and have it offset so they can get away from it. That might mean that those lower in the pecking order might be chased away, but the majority of my birds do not use it much. I mostly have it for my bantams.

The vast majority of my breeds are orps which are pretty heavily feathered. HTH

 

[mophead]

Hello neighbor MamaC. I live S.E. of the hells I mean Dells in the middle of nowhere. I've had chickens less than a year so I won'f be much help to you, alas.

 

[Cindlady]

Night All.

 

[GranolaGirl72]

Morning all, coop size negotiations went well last night, think the hubs is resigned to having more than the tiny flock of 3 he thought we should get. Had a little scare this morning in the laundry room. Yesterday when I turned on the lights, everyone came running. Today, not a chick peeked out... so I made more noise, nothing.... so I lifted the front of my heating pad and frame, peeked underneath and there was not a chick to be seen! Had to pull out the towels before I finally found that they had wedged themselves between the first and second towel. Talk about having a moment