Good Morning

[WLLady]

Good morning all! Phew, finally getting some free time! I managed to snag another little bit of vacation since this summer is going to be totally insane at work. So....i'm all set for the garden prep and what does it do? Snows 4 inches. I'm so so DONE with this snow stuff. There's a reason it's a 4 letter word.....sigh. Anyways, it all melted (finally) and yesterday was quite nice. We have starlings trying to build a nest inside the dryer vent (they figured out how to open the flap) so yesterday i made a wire cage, and this morning it's extremely entertaining seeing them trying to figure it out. So now they're stuffing all the nesting material into the eavestrough, and it's pouring rain.....MOVE ON birds....just move on...
Sally has healed from her muskrat encounter, and had her heartworm test, vaccinations and all that. She is definitely a scarface now-her skin on her nose is very dark, and more than once i thought she had some worm or another stuck to her face from being in the mud. Anyways, clean bill of health and a good recovery for her. and yesterday was called to the neighbours place to fix a hen with a quite bad case of bumblefoot. Poor thing had it in both feet, but the one way worse than the other. Hopefully she's feeling better this morning. We popped her into the coop after and she seemed to be getting around better right away. fingers crossed, she's 5 years old, and i noticed her keel was pretty pronounced, so not a lot of time left...still spunky but getting up there. Not laying any more, she quit last year in the fall and didn't start up again. Anyways, showed them what to do and how to do it.
Will do one hatch this year, just one, getting the nieces to run a hovabator full and i'm going to be 3-4 dozen in the sportsman here, and whatever hatches hatches. The hovabator with 2 teenagers running it will likely get about a 15-20% hatch rate i think. Last time they hatched it was about 10% because they went away for the weekend, closed up the house and forgot to put on the AC and left the incubator in the sun. Shocked we got 10% but they were all 3 days early, and ALL BOYS.
greenhouse is on the go now, and we finally found a combination of heaters that works well. PHEW. And i had to bet the mice out, but i found the holes they were getting in and blocked them off and so far so good - knock on wood they stay away!

[lolotsung]

Chanteclers at night

[lolotsung]

Chanteclers in the morning. Why are you pooping on my work table? One disrupter hen figured out the table was nice then another hen joined her a few days later now they all hop up there.
I'm going to move the table out of the coop... I read they shouldn't jump from high places and it's best to put the roost at 18" but if chickens could talk they would say "Quality of life update number #1. Raise the roost!"

[Killerbunny]

Totally depends on the birds and weight/ build the roost height. A Heavy bird jumping down from a height will damage joints and risk bumblefoot if there isn't room to spread their wings. A light bird you may find in the rafters, just ask @ross.

[WLLady]

LOL i find my heavier birds as far up as they can go! even my ducks roost at least 3 feet off the ground. i don't know how they get up there, but they do!

[Killerbunny]

Like the rafter turkeys, as JoAnn said "it was a technical climb"!

[Killerbunny]

Just saw/heard cranes gong over , I used to love that.

[lolotsung]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal ... -1.6424776

[Killerbunny]

Terribly sad, they lost all their breeding stock.

[Ontario Chick]

I am surprised they haven't given up yet, to deal with those kind of loses, first the fire and now this, I would have thrown in the towel long time ago.
There must be a less stressful way to make a living.