Good Morning! 2019

[Jaye]

Was at the Mount Forest sale today, boy was it busy didn't buy anything except some some chicken waters. Below is a picture of what they look like.
20190428_082404.jpg

we made one very similar to that - we like ours, and so do the chickens. It should work well for you.

[kenya]

Good to know!

[Dominion Link]

Great to hear that Penny has worked out so well for @windwalkingwolf! Yes, her mom is a Bluetick coonhound and dad is a Great Pyrenees. Our lgd's, including Penny's dad, have been worth their weight in gold. Add expense and responsibility to be certain, but the piece of mind having them on the job is well worth it.

We were still losing the odd free range bird here and there, up until this past Christmas night when the dogs caught a very sly fox who had managed to dodge the local coyotes for the last 6-7 years. Haven't lost a free ranger since that night.

[Killerbunny]

It's nearly the end of the month and I only have one entry so far. Feel free to enter non-winners you entered before!

[WLLady]

good day everyone....just getting back from a business trip. Apparently one sally puppy of ours has been missing me....LOL. always nice to come home again. this is an awesome meeting every year, and this year was no exception. so much to do!!! LOL. but for now i just want to sleep.....it's right beside toronto ariport and well, lets just say the planes stop at 12 and start at 5. and fly directly at my hotel off the end of the runway. LOL. not to mention the lights! does no one in toronto turn off their lights ever??! i would wake up at 3am thinking the sun was coming up! it's so bright all the time. argh! felt weird to not do chores for a few days. hm. looking forward to "real" eggs again too LOL

[SusanH]

Hi all. Remember me? I have been in a blue funk for several months. (For people who don’t me, I had cancer, then my husband of 45 yrs died and then among other things my own dog ate all my ducks and half my chickens. Having a rough patch), but I was thinking about you guys today and thought I would check in. For one thing, it’s turkey hunting season and the wild turkeys in my neighbourhood are acting confused. One poor girl came in to my yard this afternoon making this pitiful sound and looking so scared. I wanted to bring her in and hide her from the hunters, poor thing. Only you would understand....
I am down to four chickens. When I was away for Xmas, one went missing, and after the snow melted, I found her feathers, all in a neat circle like a sunburst, with a bare patch in the middle. What kind of predator does that suggest? It’s as if whatever it was stood there and neatly plucked her before carrying her off. There was nothing but feathers.
And the remaining four, two Wyandottes from Killerbunny and two Polish are still keeping me entertained. The Polish girls were nearly a year old before they started laying, since days shortened before they were ready in the fall, and they were a month behind the Wyandotte’s starting to lay in the spring. Long and pointy at first, but more normal now.
Miranda, one of the Wyandottes, really wants to be a mom. I tried giving her some eggs to sit on last summer, from Kbr42, but they didn’t hatch. I am thinking I might try again. Every time I go out to get the eggs, there’s Miranda, sitting on them. Sometimes there’s someone waiting in vain to get on the nest. Finally one of the other nest boxes is getting some use! They all like the same one, otherwise.
Finally, this is year four of my experiment with ground walnut shell as litter. Even though it is still dry and odour free, I’m going to clean out the whole coop and dump the litter.this year and start fresh. So eventually I will be able to tell you how it does in the compost. The small quantities that go out with the sifter scoops of droppings seem to disappear, but this will be fifty pounds of it. I’ll try to keep track of the date.
So that’s all for now!

[Killerbunny]

Interesting about the turkey hen. We have noticed them acting oddly too here, running across roads distractedly and not seeming normal. I don't think there's a hen hunt in spring??? is there??? I was wondering if their nests are getting flooded with all this rain.
BTW all I saw a hummingbird late Sunday, I mean poor thing!

[WLLady]

the jakes and toms are relentless at this time of year. it's like the deer rut in the fall. they will relentlessly chase and harass the young jennies....the older hens put them in the their place, but the younger jennies are ganged up on and it's not abnormal for 5-6 jakes to be stalking the jennies (who are single and trying to build nests and incubate eggs!) every minute of the day. the breeding season is late this year, and usually the jennies and hens are all on eggs and sitting quietly right now and the boys are off fighting each other and doing their thing. this year it's so slow a spring that the girls are JUST scouting nesting spots but the boys are rearing to go....sigh. i am a turkey hunter, there is no spring season for the females, we want them to sit and raise poults! and i have seen teenage boy packs being horrible to the girls. in fact, i was out last week and called in a very small jenny, she just wanted company, and she took off running because two jakes came in - running in - because i sounded like a hen....and they had no fear. i just thought that poor girl...run girl run. she didn't make a sound coming in, and didn't make a sound running out. in the fall that's why there are deer running everywhere, the bucks hound the does and the does just want to get away from them.

on another note, don't forget to vote in the photo of the month contest here Picture of the Month May

[Killerbunny]

Thanks for the info Kathy. I've noticed with my own turkeys the senior hens will quickly put the Jakes in their place. You hear the Jakes squeal when they do. They will also make sure the young hens don't get the first go at breeding the Tom in spring when I only have one boy with them.

[baronrenfrew]

SusanH - a rough patch? yeah - that sounds like an understatement. (my condolences of course)

My patch was rough (but not that rough). my brother, then my close aunt, then my father in law, then my dog - all passed on. meanwhile a fox took half my birds; dogs got big vet bills (and I had to hang around to watch them), two cars expired (not worth fixing the elantra, the vw was a money pit so I gave up), and I had a mid-life “review” in there. coccidiosis hit my birds, house needs repairs, hurt my knee, etc etc etc

So I sold all my birds (gonna rethink and build coops and barn), got a decent used car (two tiny rust spots, hail damaged, manual transmission) with low mileage at a great price and hunkered down for the winter. (still need a 2nd car)

Now hibernation is over and time to get back in the game.

what would pluck a chicken in a circle? bird of prey - falcon, owl, a bird too small to carry it away.