Good Morning! <=2017

ross · Post by **ross** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:04 pm

Last couple a large gardens we had we bartered away for hay & bagged corn . $ for $ worked well . Luck
Nice kitty lol

shaded · Post by **shaded** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:46 pm

WLLady wrote:QR_BBPOST so, wake up about 2am and hear something sounding annoyed just briefly. nice to have the windows in the house open and actually cool last night! so figure, whatever, go back to sleep. wake up at 5...more ruckus. then decided its my last day of holidays, so i'm sleeping in. get up at 830 and hubby says "there's something cat like in one of the traps upstairs". oh, catlike....hm.....just how do i deal with a skunk in the loft without it spraying? hm....blanket. okay, i have one in the loft that was covering the brooder. but i'm sure it was coon footprints....hm.....hope it's not a skunk!
out we go and viola! the biggest fattest coon i have seen in AGES! so with hubby's help to carry it down (i couldn't lift the cage with it in it!) it is now dispatched. i had put the trail camera up last night to see if it was just one or two or what....looks like just one big old fat male.
HUNT0043.JPG
Thanks martin for carrying it down!!!! and helping set traps last night!!!!!

so WLLady 1 raccoons 0
i like starting sunday mornings that way!
will be resetting the traps again tonight just in case. no wonder this one managed to roll the traps! big and fat because he's been eating chicken feed and eggs for at least a week up there.....and who knows, maybe longer since it was just seeing footprints on the top of a bin a couple of days ago that clued me in.....

good for you on helping with the coon population.
I've now dispatched 8 in the past 3 weeks-last one 2 days ago. No signs yesterday, but could tell what the last one I caught had been doing. All sizes and ages-think the birds might be starting to feel a bit safer and perhaps a bit less hungry too. Once the coons got all the young poults they started raiding the feed bins. Been shovelling feed into buckets to clean up and feed everyone. Hubby just about has new feed vault built.

Post by **Killerbunny** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:53 pm

Oh dear me!

ross · Post by **ross** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 1:34 pm

I sprinkle white lime around any pens inside or out & the barn loft wood floor where pigeons are & watch for footprints . Luck

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 11:06 pm

So I finally candled the eggs as hatch day is tomorrow for the bantam cornish eggs I got from Kenya on July 1st. From 3 1/2 dozen eggs, 14 had no action (infertile?), and it looks like a doz started development and stopped, and a doz or so will hatch. I ran the bator dry except for two days when the guineas hatched. Temp has been steady but the room/atmosphere humidity has been high. For the eggs expected to hatch evaporation looks about right. A full report on Thursday.

JimW · Post by **JimW** » Wed Jul 27, 2016 12:37 am

Good late evening, I got back from my road trip at 11 pm....... 1100 km, about 15 hours. I got stuck in Toronto rush hour traffic, ended up taking the 407, I hate paying to use the road, but saved me over an hour of sitting in traffic. Going to do one last check on the new additions and then off to bed. I will post a few photos later of the new flock members.

JimW

Post by **Home Grown Poultry** » Wed Jul 27, 2016 1:31 am

Jim, your hardcore! I can imagine the lengths you went through to get some of your reptiles! although moving reptiles really isnt as hard as birds now is it. HAHA

Post by **Killerbunny** » Wed Jul 27, 2016 6:18 am

I wonder if the coons are after water too. Seems the chipmunks are around here.

Post by **WLLady** » Wed Jul 27, 2016 8:26 am

For sure KB, at least around my place they were! they were dumping any and all buckets with any kind of water in them, including that gross awful water from the cleaning out of water dishes.....grossness. So far, no more coons, prints, or photos of any on the trail cam i have hanging in the loft AND i got an egg from EVERY girl up there yesterday, and the one rooster that was acting VERY aggressive did again when i was on the outside of the door but when i opened it to do their feed and water he came over and started picking up shavings and giving them to me! i think it finally clicked that i wasn't the coon....LOL. he's an awesome rooster to his ladies.

my beans are ready for picking and freezing! i can't wait! we are getting low on the freezer vegetables for the winter. i LOVE when the garden is ready. so i know what i'm doing this weekend! yay! we've been having zucchini and tomatoes and beans and potatoes and lettuce galore. the parsley was ready to pick but there were tons of swallowtail caterpillars in it so i let them have a bunch of it. I think dinner tonight might involve some homemade bruschetta. YUM. The garden is doing amazing....i have no clue why or how. maybe the manure, more chicken and less horse (horse goes back in the pasture)...maybe just more nitrogen? or? whatever, i'm actually going to get corn out of that sand for the first time ever!
and the place looks soooo amazing with those old buildings gone! I still haven't gotten used to it, so it stops me every time i go out of the house. just have a bit of old hay to move and then put some manure from the bottom of the pile over there and some grass seed/pasture seed. or maybe we'll just gravel it.....hm.....

hope everyone has a great day! stay cool, looks like another hot one coming up!

Post by **Home Grown Poultry** » Wed Jul 27, 2016 10:22 am

iv randomly placed water dishes around the property for the wild birds but any wild animals are free to use them. I didnt want them drinking from the pond or making there way into the coop.