Good Morning! in 2018

[Killerbunny]

SO I have had a close look at the pics and the verdict is an adolescent Goshawk. Will have to watch Bebe because it took a junco yesterday. Big enough to take a small hen too.

[poultry_admin]

we had a few more contestants enter the pic of the month contest. Nice!!! If you would like yours to be entered, today is the day!!! I'll set up voting tomorrow!!

[windwalkingwolf]

Good morning!
My "House Mamas" have both hatched, three days apart. One has 5 chicks and the other has two. I'm really surprised that mama 2 hatched both eggs: one had been knocked about hard enough at some point that the membrane was partially separated and air cell damaged. Contents were just sloshing around in there like water, and that rarely ends well. Mama two has decided that she is mama of ALL the chicks, and mama one is ok with that, so they are happily co-parenting. It makes it easier on me, as they can all share a cage.
Lacy the old turkey is living in my house now too. She's been slowly going blind now for about three years, is missing the top half of her face, has a bad hip from an old injury from a tom, and has gout in her "good" foot. I brought her in because she's almost completely blind now, and other birds knocking her about was disorienting her enough that it was a constant fight for her to find enough food and water. She's pretty happy about being in my kitchen and has already put weight back on. She knows the sound of a spoon in her feed bucket, and makes happy turkey noises as soon as she hears it. The practical side of me says she has outlived her usefulness, is old and achy and it would be best for her to put her in the freezer. The sentimental side of me says I am also old and achy and not yet ready to push up daisies LOL, she was my first "real" turkey after meat turkeys, has survived things that would kill a weaker bird, and deserves to live out her final days in peace and comfort. She is staying in a crate with Peggy the Footless Hen, and they are quite amicable. So the number of house birds is up to eleven. Again. One turkey, three hens and seven chicks. I'm pretty sure I'm hopeless and should just give up, give in, and turn my house into a barn
With the sudden onslaught of snow and cold, restructuring the inside of the barn has been put on hold again, so it looks like the birds' "temporary" coops are now their winter accommodations. I'll be able to separate the turkeys from the chickens, and geese from each other in the spring for breeding, but chickens? Standard and bantam, adults and juveniles, are all in together. The best I can do is keep mothers with babies still at heel, and roosters I don't want breeding, separate. Sigh. I mean, I CAN build stalls and cages in the winter, but I don't WANT to Honestly, all I want to do is hibernate until May.
I've already started, and finished (HA!) browsing seed catalogues and websites, and have all my garden seed ready for Spring. I don't even have garden cleanup done yet: the plan was to do it yesterday and today, my only two days in a row off this month, but the snow, again, put the kibosh on that. winter. I've said it before, but I'll say it again--if it hits -35, I'm moving somewhere warmer. Seriously, 8 months of winter is too much. 6 weeks of summer is too little. Arrghhh lol

[ross]

Now that I am old and grey I pick my fights most every day . The garden will be there in the spring ( no till for winter) while I do my winter thing .

[Killerbunny]

I hear you about Lacy, she is very special! I also admit that we do have a plan that , if AI hits near us, the birds will be moving into the laundry room and lower bedroom area so you are not crazy!

[labradors]

KB What is Al? (Not really sure that I want to know.....)

Linda

[Killerbunny]

Avian Influenza. It isn't about ATM but a few years ago there were some cases in SW Ontario. It pops up in Commercial operations in the States and here as well. Don't want to jinx it though!

[labradors]

Oh thanks KB. I thought it must be a hurricane or tropical storm or something! {LOL}.


Linda

[TomK]

Well, more snow..not a lot but a gentle reminder that last weeks dumping wasnt a fluke...of course, being the born and bred procrastinator that I am, MJ had suggested, dare i say more than once, that i test start the snowblower before i actually needed it, and of course i didnt so when it was needed my fingers and toes were crossed for a start...whew, the gods were with me and with a kick and a cough the darn thing fires up and sputtered out a bit of blue smoke and roared to life...but, and there is always a but, after doing the 5 runs up and back on the lane just as i got to the 'turn around' it kicked with a bang and stopped dead...oh ...and wouldn't start...the old beast threw a rod in the old parlance of the day and that was that...ever try to get a snowblower fixed or buy a new one the day of or after a first snowfall?...you get the idea...so i went searching for a used unit for the pto on the tractor..now, they work great but i have never been a fann of corkscrewing my body around for hours on ends to drive a machine in the opposite direction to which it was designed, but what do you do...it cost me less than a new walk behind unit and as i suck (and that's with a capital 'S') at small engine repair, at least I can fix the heavier piece of equipment attached to a tractor...so maybe its all for the best..
..on a lighter note, I finally got all the new panels made up for the extended pens..might have to get the pick out to chisel away some of the ground to install them level and proper but hey, I got nothing better to do, right?..I said "Right"?...NOT
...anyway, one of the trio in my brooder crowed so proved his gender..and his wattles are finaly showing...the other two look a tad different from him and are smaller, so it appears that my three are a proper 'trio' of cream Brabanters..small mercies for this old guy
....i get an egg a day or so from the 5 Welsummers and the same from the five BCMs but if the other 24 hens give me an egg I run right out and run the flag up the pole in celebration...wonder if any of you folks are in the same quagmire of low light, nippy temps and moult..quite the combination wouldn't you say?...
anyhow, got atuff to do today, least arduous but stupid annoying is tending to frozen waterers...I need to get back into the habit of bringing them in to thaw when i lock up the coops at night..would save me a lot of time
..have a great Monday friends...

[Ontario Chick]

Thank you Jan and TomK for enjoyable read.
I have timeline for fall that is based on...First snow fall, first week in November, but then it melts.
That means appointment to change tires/oil is made end of October, which seems to work well.
Serious preparations start RIGHT AFTER that first snow fall melts mid November.
Turns out I have no plan B if it doesn't melt.
So the old yellow corrugated whatever taken down from the barn windows, thus making them single windows on the inside, gaping hole between the barn siding and the inside wall in preparation for installing the outside plexiglass windows, the deluge came.
All I have to say is, I can't see the gaping hole coz its full of snow.
Going to the library to borrow bunch of books on exotic locations.
Have a good one!