Good Morning! <=2017
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ross
- Teenaged Cockerel
- Posts: 4985
- Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:54 am
- Location: Parkhill /Thedford SW Ont
- x 8536
Good Morning!
Guess I'll put my clothes back on & let my "man bun" down , no more dance no rain here . Luck
3
ENJOY YOUR HUNTING / FISHING HERITAGE & the GREATNESS of CANADA
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windwalkingwolf
- Poultry Guru - pullet level
- Posts: 3567
- Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 1:31 pm
- Location: Frankville, Ontario
- x 4900
Good Morning!
Good morning all! Fair warning, this will be long and will ramble as my (thankfully rare) good morning posts tend to do.
Need rain. Haven't done a nekkid rain dance yet, haven't had time! I'm still struggling to get all my started plants planted into the garden, but I'm ^almost* done. 17 garden beds, all approximately 4 feet x 100 feet, WHAT WAS I THINKING??? It was all raw, unbroken ground before April, too, so there's no end to the weeding to be done. Silly me. I have a sprinkler going (in a circle) on a stretch of garden at nearly all times. The sprinkler will water about 30 feet in a circle, app. 4 beds wide, so I can water 4 whole beds in about three moves of the sprinkler...it takes 3 hours to soak an area to the point it's actually reaching roots, so I can do about 4 beds in a day. But by the time I'm done the second group of 4 beds, the first is dry and almost wilting again. Sigh. I'm REALLY glad I planted my corn rows in partial shade near the tree line, or they'd be in deep doo-doo, since they are the far end of the veggie rows and last to get water. I can afford to ignore the shady end a little.
A lady that the hubby did some work for, got all excited when she found out I had chickens. She's an older Dutch lady, and hasn't had chickens since she was a girl. She was so beside herself at the prospect of getting some chickens, that I couldn't refuse to offer her some, and she went right out and bought a little TSC coop and dragged her daughter and son-in-law down from Hamilton to help her set it up and get everything ready! She at first wanted 4 little chicks, but then decided on 4 hens, THEN changed her mind to 3 hens and a rooster. She wanted a variety of colours and egg colours, but didn't care on breed or age, and already had a name (Chantecleer lol) picked out for the rooster, sight unseen. I picked her out 1.) a two year old black Orpington hen, ugly as sin because she constantly throws herself into the rooster pen, but lays 6-7 eggs a week and makes lovely babies...2.) a 5 month old black and gold silkie/orpington mix pullet that recently started squatting...3.) a beautiful 9 month old shy little silver and brown partridge EE pullet that needs a move and a little flock to bring her out of her shell...and 4.) a 2 1/2 year old small black EE rooster with lovely red and white leakage. I picked them according to her requirements--for colour variety, friendly personality and for egg-laying ability (the one is not laying yet, but her silkie x ameraucana x rsl mother is a machine) and for my own requirements, I picked smaller sized birds because I know those little coops don't comfortably house very many, I picked birds that I know will be OK confined, and I educated her on chicken diseases and what my flock may or may not carry, and what to look for. Because my chickens *might* be Typhoid Marys'* (ILT and/or Coryza). I vastly underpriced them and offered to replace them if there was an outbreak. First time I've sold chickens in a very long time, BECAUSE I know all my chickens might have been exposed to a nasty, and I'm very nervous about it. I haven't seen signs of anything in my flocks since initial outbreaks 2 and 3 years ago, but that doesn't mean there isn't something nasty lurking, just waiting for some stress to pop up again. Experience says the chickens will be just fine and she'll be over the moon happy with them, but that little niggling voice in the back of my head says "Check. Keep checking". LOL OCD, who, ME? NAHHHH.
In other news, we got our granny suite rented out for the first of August. My mother committed to spending another year babysitting for my youngest sister and didn't want to take it, so we looked around for a renter. I REALLY don't like renting to people I don't know, but we really can't afford to pay the mortgage without a renter, so there it is. I advertised for some part-time farm help in exchange for CHEAP rent, but got no biters, so I jacked the price to 900 and WHAM. 3 showings a day. People are funny. The one we went with, I liked her almost immediately, and that rarely happens. Working single woman, already paid first months rent. That's good, because our hydro bill was overdue LOL. F***ing hydro.
We now have a total of 12 cattle here. 5 of our own (jersey crosses) including one still on milk, and 7 we're pasturing for a friend. One of the latter is a holstein that had a calf last month, and she's feeding her own calf, my newest one (under protest however), AND has a whole lot left over at end of day. But so little fat content we can't get enough cream for butter unless saved for a week. She was so engorged in one quarter at one point, that she burst a blood vessel just laying down, and had bloody milk out of that quarter for almost a week. EW. Just re-inforced my decision to not ever get Holsteins. For high-production dairy, sure, but for me, no f***ing thank you. I need a cow with lower-quantity, higher quality milk, and better beef qualities. The Jersey x Simmentals are it for now, but I'd like to get my hands on milking shorthorns. Or a nice, beefy heifer of any breed really, when prices go down, because they're still over-inflated to my eyes. Tired of paying 8$ a pound for sh*t corn fed beef.
Hoping for a visit from WLLady on Saturday sometime, on her way through to Montreal. She's dropping off some goodies for people coming to the PikNik, looking forward to meeting her and company! I guess that means tomorrow (today) is house cleaning day, because I've abandoned all house cleaning for the last month or more, in favour of trying to get ahead of the vegetable gardening LOL!
And, last, but not least, I've hatched three lots of 15-25 chicks so far this year. Almost ALL are boys. I think I've got six pullets out of the bunch. I've got more eggs incubating, but really I'm counting on the hens at this point. I've got 4 hens raising a very few little ones each, and a couple more hens just went down. Hoping for more girls as the season goes on, jeeze!
Need rain. Haven't done a nekkid rain dance yet, haven't had time! I'm still struggling to get all my started plants planted into the garden, but I'm ^almost* done. 17 garden beds, all approximately 4 feet x 100 feet, WHAT WAS I THINKING??? It was all raw, unbroken ground before April, too, so there's no end to the weeding to be done. Silly me. I have a sprinkler going (in a circle) on a stretch of garden at nearly all times. The sprinkler will water about 30 feet in a circle, app. 4 beds wide, so I can water 4 whole beds in about three moves of the sprinkler...it takes 3 hours to soak an area to the point it's actually reaching roots, so I can do about 4 beds in a day. But by the time I'm done the second group of 4 beds, the first is dry and almost wilting again. Sigh. I'm REALLY glad I planted my corn rows in partial shade near the tree line, or they'd be in deep doo-doo, since they are the far end of the veggie rows and last to get water. I can afford to ignore the shady end a little.
A lady that the hubby did some work for, got all excited when she found out I had chickens. She's an older Dutch lady, and hasn't had chickens since she was a girl. She was so beside herself at the prospect of getting some chickens, that I couldn't refuse to offer her some, and she went right out and bought a little TSC coop and dragged her daughter and son-in-law down from Hamilton to help her set it up and get everything ready! She at first wanted 4 little chicks, but then decided on 4 hens, THEN changed her mind to 3 hens and a rooster. She wanted a variety of colours and egg colours, but didn't care on breed or age, and already had a name (Chantecleer lol) picked out for the rooster, sight unseen. I picked her out 1.) a two year old black Orpington hen, ugly as sin because she constantly throws herself into the rooster pen, but lays 6-7 eggs a week and makes lovely babies...2.) a 5 month old black and gold silkie/orpington mix pullet that recently started squatting...3.) a beautiful 9 month old shy little silver and brown partridge EE pullet that needs a move and a little flock to bring her out of her shell...and 4.) a 2 1/2 year old small black EE rooster with lovely red and white leakage. I picked them according to her requirements--for colour variety, friendly personality and for egg-laying ability (the one is not laying yet, but her silkie x ameraucana x rsl mother is a machine) and for my own requirements, I picked smaller sized birds because I know those little coops don't comfortably house very many, I picked birds that I know will be OK confined, and I educated her on chicken diseases and what my flock may or may not carry, and what to look for. Because my chickens *might* be Typhoid Marys'* (ILT and/or Coryza). I vastly underpriced them and offered to replace them if there was an outbreak. First time I've sold chickens in a very long time, BECAUSE I know all my chickens might have been exposed to a nasty, and I'm very nervous about it. I haven't seen signs of anything in my flocks since initial outbreaks 2 and 3 years ago, but that doesn't mean there isn't something nasty lurking, just waiting for some stress to pop up again. Experience says the chickens will be just fine and she'll be over the moon happy with them, but that little niggling voice in the back of my head says "Check. Keep checking". LOL OCD, who, ME? NAHHHH.
In other news, we got our granny suite rented out for the first of August. My mother committed to spending another year babysitting for my youngest sister and didn't want to take it, so we looked around for a renter. I REALLY don't like renting to people I don't know, but we really can't afford to pay the mortgage without a renter, so there it is. I advertised for some part-time farm help in exchange for CHEAP rent, but got no biters, so I jacked the price to 900 and WHAM. 3 showings a day. People are funny. The one we went with, I liked her almost immediately, and that rarely happens. Working single woman, already paid first months rent. That's good, because our hydro bill was overdue LOL. F***ing hydro.
We now have a total of 12 cattle here. 5 of our own (jersey crosses) including one still on milk, and 7 we're pasturing for a friend. One of the latter is a holstein that had a calf last month, and she's feeding her own calf, my newest one (under protest however), AND has a whole lot left over at end of day. But so little fat content we can't get enough cream for butter unless saved for a week. She was so engorged in one quarter at one point, that she burst a blood vessel just laying down, and had bloody milk out of that quarter for almost a week. EW. Just re-inforced my decision to not ever get Holsteins. For high-production dairy, sure, but for me, no f***ing thank you. I need a cow with lower-quantity, higher quality milk, and better beef qualities. The Jersey x Simmentals are it for now, but I'd like to get my hands on milking shorthorns. Or a nice, beefy heifer of any breed really, when prices go down, because they're still over-inflated to my eyes. Tired of paying 8$ a pound for sh*t corn fed beef.
Hoping for a visit from WLLady on Saturday sometime, on her way through to Montreal. She's dropping off some goodies for people coming to the PikNik, looking forward to meeting her and company! I guess that means tomorrow (today) is house cleaning day, because I've abandoned all house cleaning for the last month or more, in favour of trying to get ahead of the vegetable gardening LOL!
And, last, but not least, I've hatched three lots of 15-25 chicks so far this year. Almost ALL are boys. I think I've got six pullets out of the bunch. I've got more eggs incubating, but really I'm counting on the hens at this point. I've got 4 hens raising a very few little ones each, and a couple more hens just went down. Hoping for more girls as the season goes on, jeeze!
6
-
ross
- Teenaged Cockerel
- Posts: 4985
- Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:54 am
- Location: Parkhill /Thedford SW Ont
- x 8536
Good Morning!
Wow take a breath Jan . Big tunder bang here just now den down come du rain . Heeehawww . Oops other light crash boom . Rain drops keep fallin on my head . New dog , Nina , not afraid of storm . Good had a chow one time that was . Whined the whole time . Oh did I tell yu she likes to sing but only with accompniment . We sit & howl at whatever & have a great time . Have a great Friday all . Luck
5
ENJOY YOUR HUNTING / FISHING HERITAGE & the GREATNESS of CANADA
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Bayvistafarm
- Chatty Hen
- Posts: 664
- Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 5:45 pm
- Location: Hamilton Ontario
- x 1303
Good Morning!
Good morning!! Its raining! Don't know for how long... but something is coming from the sky. Very lightly tho. Thats probably good to start, as anything I water, the stuff just doesn't soak in at all. Unless its on the ground with huge cracks in it.
I have a lot of boys from my two chicken hatches......I wanted to go to Hagersville this morning. I'll see how hard its raining later. Its very dark here for almost 6 am.
Well... still waiting on this baby. On the 27th, she was 4cm and the next day her 'plug' came way. Two days ago, she was nearly 5cm...nearly 100% effaced... and so she did the 'stretch and sweep' on her. Nothing. Nothing but made her uncomfortable.
Stubborn child. She's gotta go soon!
Just got in from the barn, got the lights on, so the kids eat something before I go... if I do. See theres a heifer bulling... so shes on the list to AI this morning. Gary was so adamant against breeding the heifers early, but before the spring glut of calvings it would be nice to get the heifers over and done with first. MORE attention can be paid to them, there will be pens inside for just them, they won't get 'stealed' upon when they are bagging up, and will hopefully breed back quicker. We've already bred two. All to a charolais bull. Hopefully no calving issues. 3 heifers had calves to that bull this year so far, and all calved on their own, with no problems. He does have a silver symbol stating great calving ease. These are big blonde cross heifers, who are already as tall as some of the cows in the herd. We get our new angus bull on the 20th. Costly sucker... $4000. He'd better be worth it.
Well, coffee time. Now that I"m up. Hope it rains on everyone today!
I have a lot of boys from my two chicken hatches......I wanted to go to Hagersville this morning. I'll see how hard its raining later. Its very dark here for almost 6 am.
Well... still waiting on this baby. On the 27th, she was 4cm and the next day her 'plug' came way. Two days ago, she was nearly 5cm...nearly 100% effaced... and so she did the 'stretch and sweep' on her. Nothing. Nothing but made her uncomfortable.
Stubborn child. She's gotta go soon!
Just got in from the barn, got the lights on, so the kids eat something before I go... if I do. See theres a heifer bulling... so shes on the list to AI this morning. Gary was so adamant against breeding the heifers early, but before the spring glut of calvings it would be nice to get the heifers over and done with first. MORE attention can be paid to them, there will be pens inside for just them, they won't get 'stealed' upon when they are bagging up, and will hopefully breed back quicker. We've already bred two. All to a charolais bull. Hopefully no calving issues. 3 heifers had calves to that bull this year so far, and all calved on their own, with no problems. He does have a silver symbol stating great calving ease. These are big blonde cross heifers, who are already as tall as some of the cows in the herd. We get our new angus bull on the 20th. Costly sucker... $4000. He'd better be worth it.
Well, coffee time. Now that I"m up. Hope it rains on everyone today!
4
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poultry_admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 2321
- Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2015 8:27 pm
- Location: West Lorne, Ontario
- x 1949
- Contact:
Good Morning!
just over an inch here!!
0
Be brave enough to suck at something new!
Political Grace: The art of disagreeing well.
Political Grace: The art of disagreeing well.
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ross
- Teenaged Cockerel
- Posts: 4985
- Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:54 am
- Location: Parkhill /Thedford SW Ont
- x 8536
Good Morning!
Just heard on news that a duck farm in St Catherine's area in quarantine for H5 Avian Influenza .
0
ENJOY YOUR HUNTING / FISHING HERITAGE & the GREATNESS of CANADA
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Killerbunny
- Poultry Guru - total zen level
- Posts: 7977
- Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 12:04 pm
- Location: Brockville
- x 10288
Good Morning!
Oh crap!
0
Beltsville Small White turkeys.
Mutt chickens for eggs
RIP Stephen the BSW Tom and my coffee companion.
RIP Lucky the Very Brave Splash Wyandotte rooster.
RIP little Muppet the rescue cat.
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poultry_admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 2321
- Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2015 8:27 pm
- Location: West Lorne, Ontario
- x 1949
- Contact:
Good Morning!
Oh crap!
That's right!
Best description yet:
http://www.agcanada.com/daily/ontario-d ... -avian-flu
In the News:
http://www.cp24.com/news/avian-influenz ... -1.2978351
http://globalnews.ca/news/2811464/avian ... duck-farm/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/a ... -1.3669660
The CFIA announcement
http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1095909
That's right!
Best description yet:
http://www.agcanada.com/daily/ontario-d ... -avian-flu
In the News:
http://www.cp24.com/news/avian-influenz ... -1.2978351
http://globalnews.ca/news/2811464/avian ... duck-farm/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/a ... -1.3669660
The CFIA announcement
http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1095909
0
Be brave enough to suck at something new!
Political Grace: The art of disagreeing well.
Political Grace: The art of disagreeing well.