Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[bigzio]

Evening to All.... yep quite the windy day here on the hill. It started out early with my friend from Fondy driving up the driveway at 5:15...then off to the turkey blind setting the decoys and home made fan once again. The wind really muffed the gobbling toms sounds and I thought they had to be at leat 2 to3 hundred yars away.

I again called over here thinking there was no way they could here my love call.....waiting again even longer to call, I'm thinkin this wind is making the call futile, and we are gonna be here a long while.

The hens started to sound much closer...then 4 hens appeared with 5 toms at tow.....unbelievable!
One tom decided he was get to the set-up first..... It arrived onmy side side of the tent and finally made my friends Rick's view.....wait I said til he streches his neck before you shoot.....OK....Shoot!

Nice bird with a 9" beard....done deal one hour after opening. I was really happy for him. Only his second bird ever, and I called both for him.... I told him the guide fee is going up...

Sorry you guys were a week early for the swap. Glad it wasen't a total loss for ya'all.

Cedar Post, that's cool having the patience with the high priced help! Do you bother with flat work out of town? Just a thought, for my new project. Haven't decided yet if I'm doing a slab or not?

Doc, I'm glad you're glad! The getting use to freedom is definitly a adjustment period. One fun day at a time....gosh I have to go lock the hens up...it's after 800....later

~ bigzio

 

[fordmommy]

Busy day! First the swaps and then here doing the coop and my friend from Manawa came over and a big feasco with a rooster for her.....

Well- you know about the swaps. I sold 2 babies at Wega for $4 each. So that was ok.

Then I came home and DH was hard working on the coop.

My friend calls and I tell her all about the swap thing and she says she'd buy some of my babies. We had talked about it before and were going to wait until they got older to sex them. She really didn't want too many more roos, you know. I think she's getting impatient.

So, she comes over and buys 10!!!!

So I sold a dozen babies today!

Then she tells me that a while back she sold a roo to a friend of her grandpa's. Well-the lady owning the roo asked her grandpa if my friend would take that roo back. Guess he was chasing her around and she said he was MEAN!

So my friend, being the nice person she is, says Ya, she'd take him back. So after here, she went over there to get that guy. He jumped right at her face 4x!

She catches him and takes him home. He's too pretty to cull she said. She locked him up in a horse stable in the barn and calls and asks me if I'd sell him next weekend at the swap and I tell her sure! I tease her a little about that mean roo and before we get off the phone saying that she can bring him over in a cage and I'll just though the food at the cage in there but won't go near him. Just joking! Well.....she calls about an hour or so later and says, guess what....I think he killed all those babies I just gave her, her voice was so sad. She says that her BF saw that the roo had gotten out and was running in the their yard covered in blood. He said that he bet someone was dead. They went in their barn and here that MEAN roo killed her nicest roo. A blue and gold cochin.

He was 3x as big as that MEAN roo. She is SOOOOOO upset. They had that guy for 4 years. They did take care of that roo imediately.

We think that maybe her nice rooo was protecting her mamas and babies she had in the barn. Scarey!

So-I just had to share.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Hey Fordmommy

for your friend what a sad thing to have happen!

Brr outside this am, our foster puppy had me up early needing to go out-she's better than a rooster

Of course the other 2 wanted out as well!

Since our big rooster went for a swim in the creek by our house-he hasn't crowed and he hides when ever we come past his area....

So far all the remaining chicks are healthy and doing good

and the turkeys are so funny to watch-we think we have about 5 toms and 4 hens in the group.

Guess today will be clean pens and move chicks-our group of partridge cochins and cuckoo Marans need more space than our biggest dog crate so Blue and Mort will swap spots with them.

Have a good one!

 

[BigBadCryBaby]

Fordmommy that's a sad story, now that I've got birds that I'm getting ever so slightly attached to, I can't imagine coming out to find one slaughtered by another.

Bummer.

I didn't get a chance to check the flock before I headed out this morning, but that's the coldest night they've been out in the coop...I checked em last night and all 22 were huddled under the heat lamp, keeping warm. It was still blowing out of the northwest and the coop has good ventilation (i.e, old falling apart barn) so it was cool in the coop.

I've got three roosters for sure, Jerry Lee (white ameraucauna), Elvis (black australorp who looks like he flew through a wind tunnel) and Conan (Rhode Island Red). They're all healthy, handsome birds, but I think keeping all three is going to be a bad idea down the line because I want great egg production and I don't need them tearing each other up. After hearing Fordmommys BFF story, I'm convinced of it.

Mom and I went and picked up two little blue silkies yesterday afternoon and holy cow are those little pukes cute!!! I've got to post some pics tonight of the roos and the new chicks. Mom, despite herself (and of course not wanting to egg on my new chicken addiction), is enjoying having the birds around and is even broaching the idea of getting broilers so we've got some good clean chicken to eat. Ha!!! I knew she'd drink the cool aid, sooner or later.

Bigz good on you, two nice birds for your hunt. I haven't turkey hunt in years and by golly you've got me thinking about it again.

 

[cedar post]

Good morning to all kinda cool out there this morning. Went for a walk and seen a roo pheasant and heard a tom turkey. Watched a few woodpeckers fighting over a hollow in a tree for nesting. Checked the chickies in their new coop and they are huddled up under the lamp.

BBCB you should try YE OLE TURKEY HUNT AGAIN the only downfall is the 25 or more dollars just to shoot a bird.

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

Quote:
the cake sounds good can I ask for the recipe

, my rhubarb is ready

 

[BigBadCryBaby]

Quote:
CP I'd like to turkey hunt again, and we've got some nice flocks all around us, plenty of great nesting areas, and they're up in the fields to the south of the house more often than not. We'll see. I promised myself when my kids got older and I had more time I'd get all the bird hunting back up and going, and now both are in college so this might be a good time, really. $25 for a turkey permit is bullS**t, though. Cripes, I think the last time I hunted gobblers it was $9 or $12???

On a different matter, I've got a question for y'all...with these little silkies, being only about 5 days old, I'll keep them in the house for a month or so and then I'd like to get them out into the coop...how would you go about integrating them into the flock? Any info is greatly appreciated.

 

[beckyschicks]

BBCB- I've been wondering the same thing with my chicks I got at the fondy swap. So waiting for an answer too.
Went to the horse fair yesterday and met up with Terri and her friend and family. It was really nice to meet you Terri! Was alot of fun! My legs hurt today though to much walking around. Brought alot of great stuff. Going to go play with some of it today. Cool out there yesterday. We kept hiding inside to stay out of the wind. Not much nicer today either. My little polish chick wasn't doing so good yesterday either. Brought him inside for the day, He is back out there today and seems ok. He was all hunched up and fluffed up. Crop was empty. Gave him some vitamin water and food. He was pooping green too. Don't know what was the matter but going to keep an eye on him today. Any ideas?
Sorry about your friends roo fordmommy.

I would be upset too. Congrats Bigzio and DrH- Bigzio for the turkey and DrHa for the freedom! Well enjoy the sunshine everyone!

 

[Sweetfolly]

Hello - what a beautiful day!

Our family went up to Castle Rock lake for the weekend, it's only about a half-hour from us, and it's easy to drive back and forth to feed the birds and let the dogs out - I didn't spend the night, but they were CRAZY and did, in a TENT!

It's still too cold for that - all the duck ponds had a good 1/4 inch of ice on them this morning.

I went over to a friends today to pick up some turkey eggs he's letting me try to hatch. He was supposed to have 15 of them for me, but he finally got one of his turkeys to sit on a nest, and I only got 9 - SO, he threw in 9 brown chicken eggs too. I dunno what breed they are - his chickens were pretty big and a very pretty golden color - but they weren't fluffy like Orpingtons. He couldn't remember what breed they were either, so I'm digging through pictures on Feathersite right now. They might be some sort of sex-link.

His turkeys are gorgeous. The tom looked like a normal brown turkey (I don't know much about turkeys) but the girls were beautiful shades of lemony-blonde, red, and barred-red. So I'm pretty excited to see what I hatch out!

When I got home with the eggs, I had a new Welsh Harlequin duckling looking at me through the 'bator - these are the eggs I picked up at the Beaver Dam swap last month. I only got 4 of them, and lost one sometime during week two, so there are only 3 eggs in the hatcher right now. One more is zipping, and the third hasn't done anything yet - but he was moving around in there when I put them into lockdown.

fordmommy - That's terrible about that roo. I can't bear to cull a bird, so I probably would've ended up in the same situation.

I'm glad my little bantam roosters are sweet and like to follow me around the yard like puppy-dogs.

 

[cedar post]

OK Buck Creek heres the recipe.
Rhubarb Upside Down Cake
4 cups rhubarb cut up
2 sticks butter
2 or 3 cups brown sugar
1 white or yellow cake mix

Preheat oven 350 put sticks of butter in cake pan and put in oven to melt while oven is preheating. Menwhile cut up rhubarb. Remove pan when butter is melted and add brown sugar and rhubarb mix it up. Mix cake according to mix directions and pour over rhubarb. Bake 1 hour. Remove let cool awhile and flip upside down out of cake pan onto cookie sheet. That's it.

Like I said I may have gained a pound or two this weekend but my daughter and chickens kept me busy this weekend!! Mike