With all the rain we had...came terrible mud. Thick goo actually. My poor penned up roosters have suffered because of it. I put a few of them in the new cage I made. My husband gave them baths and we doctored them up when needed. A couple of them got squished into the mud and ended up with eye infections, so I gave one a couple of shots of antibiotics and put an antibiotic ointment in his eye, he is on the back porch. I have one in the house that I have put eye ointment in one eye, he didn't have much of the cheesy material in his eye, so no shots. I can tell he is feeling better...he was crowing in the house this morning. He was responding to the roosters in cages on the back porch. Even though officially it is spring here now, we had a light freeze the night before last. I moved some of my chicks to the outdoor brooder on the porch, so I had to keep the latest rooster In the house until he was dry. It is easier to just doctor on him when I don't have to catch him too...he is crowing again now! It is quite the surprise to hear a rooster crowing in your house, they are very loud.
I will probably try and move the roosters on the back porch to a pen today. It is suppose to rain a few more inches this week though, so I am not sure how good an idea that would be. I need to build more housing, so I guess I should get to work on my breeding pens. I will till the area today and try and make it more level. I need to put out some grass seed too, my old garden area needs to grow back...the more grass I have for the chickens, the less they eat of their food and that helps with feed cost. I sold all of my mixed breed hens now. But I am hatching some chicks to try and replace the eggs, a lot of people want full grown hens that are already laying too...I cannot sell them if I don't have them. I have goose, duck, turkey and chicken eggs in my incubators now. I have chicks in one brooder in the house, ducks and a goose in one, and two large geese...Hope and Mercy in a swimming pool brooder in the house too...but they are old enough to go outside now. We are slowly trying to integrate them with the rest of the flock. We have put them in a fenced area behind the main coop during the day a few times, but as cold as it has been the past few days, we bring them back inside at night. We are growing these geese out to try and get Thor some ladies, he seems pretty interested in getting to know them. Thor is just over two years old, he needs companionship other than the ducks he hangs around with. Loki basically took the other females when we got them, so we are trying to bond Loki's daughters to Thor...we know they are Loki's because they all have blue eyes like Loki. I even know the mother goose, she is the smallest of the three girls, she did not start laying last year...so she was the first to start this year. I guess we should give Loki's girls names, only one is named Athena so far...and this is not Athena. Thor does occasionally mate with one of the other girls, but we should be able to tell the difference with his babies, they should have brown eyes like Thor...and the girls...I think.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Decisions Decisions Decisions
I purchased the wood last week for breeding pens and have been looking around my yard trying to figure out the most level, best draining, easiest access place to put them. I have been measuring and moving and measuring again. I am building the pens so they will be connected, so not easily moved...each individual pen will be 4 feet wide and 12 feet long, part of that will be a raised coop, so the run will be 12 feet long. I am going to model them after the chicken tractor I built when I first started with chickens...but the runs will be taller.
After much thought, I think I am going to take a section of fencing out from my duck and goose area to a smallish garden area to build them. There is the remnants of a very large stump in that garden, I found it when I expanded the garden, but I just worked around it at the time. I have decided to put it in this area because of a gentle slope, it will drain when it rains. It is up high enough that it won't flood like my makeshift breeding pens housing some of the roosters...and it is the flattest section I can find big enough that doesn't flood. There is a drain pipe to drain water from the back yard but I will just put them far enough into the duck pen that they are not affected by them. It will be shaded in the late afternoon for the most part so summer heat shouldn't be an issue.
Well, I started writing this a couple three weeks ago...a lot has happened since then. I have been hatching geese ducks and chicks, which makes more work for me. At the moment I have 6 goslings in various stages of development, had 7 ducklings hatch a few days ago, have chicks inside and outside in brooders...probably about 25 of them and have set more eggs. I have sold pretty much all of my extra hens...oh, and I have at least two of my turkey hens laying and have been setting their eggs too. I candled one that I set about 4 days ago and I see veins and a tiny little body! I am so happy, I love the sounds all of theses little birds make. It is a lot of work cleaning up after them so I stay busy.
We also have had some major rain, we probably received about 12-1/2 inches of rain in two days. Our creek overflowed it's banks, the lake is super full, my yard still has standing water in it and everything is a muddy mess. My husband has gathered up some of the muddiest roosters and given them baths...so my three kennels and two brooders on the back porch are all full, and only one has chicks in it. I have 12 adults on my back porch, it is getting kind of crowded. Because of all this...I am building an 8'x 30" brooder/cage that will be divided into three sections. I may have to build another one too. We started on the breeding coops and pens...but I may have to take the one we started apart, the ground is just not quite right and I think I will till and level it somewhat, we were trying to make it square on a surface that is slightly stair stepped and angled down...we may have to set the posts in cement and just level the coop section and not have the run attached to the coop, unless I can level it much better.
In the mean time, Spring has sprung. I tilled a new garden area in my front yard, it is already growing grass...I have not planted anything yet, but have tilled it twice. It needs to be fenced and I am working on that too, I have driven a number of t-posts into the ground, but had to stop, I need to get the utility lines marked so I don't cut into anything. In the beginning I was just going to fence the garden area, but I planted some fruit bushes and trees and need a larger area fenced. It takes a lot of fencing to keep making small sectioned off areas, it will work out less expensive just to fence the outside perimeter of the front yard. Since the front of our property is almost 400 feet from marker to marker...that is a lot of fence. I would really like to fence about 200 feet down each side and just on the other side of the lake too....then, I could let the dogs out into the large section of the yard and not have to worry about them getting into the street or my neighbors yards, no fighting with the wild dog pack either, and maybe the ducks and geese could go to the lake safely to swim and weed?
Anyway, I got up early for a Sunday, but we were suppose to change the clocks last night, and didn't yet. I like day lights savings time...yes, we may have lost an hour, but it will be light later now so more daylight equals me having more time to get things done outside that I need to do. Tops on my list is finishing the cage I am building today. I need to plant some veggies, but it is too muddy...and then while I have the tiller out, I may as well till the breeding pen section...and there is always cleaning that needs to happen.
After much thought, I think I am going to take a section of fencing out from my duck and goose area to a smallish garden area to build them. There is the remnants of a very large stump in that garden, I found it when I expanded the garden, but I just worked around it at the time. I have decided to put it in this area because of a gentle slope, it will drain when it rains. It is up high enough that it won't flood like my makeshift breeding pens housing some of the roosters...and it is the flattest section I can find big enough that doesn't flood. There is a drain pipe to drain water from the back yard but I will just put them far enough into the duck pen that they are not affected by them. It will be shaded in the late afternoon for the most part so summer heat shouldn't be an issue.
Well, I started writing this a couple three weeks ago...a lot has happened since then. I have been hatching geese ducks and chicks, which makes more work for me. At the moment I have 6 goslings in various stages of development, had 7 ducklings hatch a few days ago, have chicks inside and outside in brooders...probably about 25 of them and have set more eggs. I have sold pretty much all of my extra hens...oh, and I have at least two of my turkey hens laying and have been setting their eggs too. I candled one that I set about 4 days ago and I see veins and a tiny little body! I am so happy, I love the sounds all of theses little birds make. It is a lot of work cleaning up after them so I stay busy.
We also have had some major rain, we probably received about 12-1/2 inches of rain in two days. Our creek overflowed it's banks, the lake is super full, my yard still has standing water in it and everything is a muddy mess. My husband has gathered up some of the muddiest roosters and given them baths...so my three kennels and two brooders on the back porch are all full, and only one has chicks in it. I have 12 adults on my back porch, it is getting kind of crowded. Because of all this...I am building an 8'x 30" brooder/cage that will be divided into three sections. I may have to build another one too. We started on the breeding coops and pens...but I may have to take the one we started apart, the ground is just not quite right and I think I will till and level it somewhat, we were trying to make it square on a surface that is slightly stair stepped and angled down...we may have to set the posts in cement and just level the coop section and not have the run attached to the coop, unless I can level it much better.
In the mean time, Spring has sprung. I tilled a new garden area in my front yard, it is already growing grass...I have not planted anything yet, but have tilled it twice. It needs to be fenced and I am working on that too, I have driven a number of t-posts into the ground, but had to stop, I need to get the utility lines marked so I don't cut into anything. In the beginning I was just going to fence the garden area, but I planted some fruit bushes and trees and need a larger area fenced. It takes a lot of fencing to keep making small sectioned off areas, it will work out less expensive just to fence the outside perimeter of the front yard. Since the front of our property is almost 400 feet from marker to marker...that is a lot of fence. I would really like to fence about 200 feet down each side and just on the other side of the lake too....then, I could let the dogs out into the large section of the yard and not have to worry about them getting into the street or my neighbors yards, no fighting with the wild dog pack either, and maybe the ducks and geese could go to the lake safely to swim and weed?
Anyway, I got up early for a Sunday, but we were suppose to change the clocks last night, and didn't yet. I like day lights savings time...yes, we may have lost an hour, but it will be light later now so more daylight equals me having more time to get things done outside that I need to do. Tops on my list is finishing the cage I am building today. I need to plant some veggies, but it is too muddy...and then while I have the tiller out, I may as well till the breeding pen section...and there is always cleaning that needs to happen.
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