Eva’s Friends

Callender Girl · Feb 19, 2024

Rita's egg is stunning I don't understand your family's reaction, but I also don't understand why some people are grossed out about eating duck eggs. On the other hand, no one has ever turned down one of my geese's eggs. People!!!

Congrats also on the rest of the girls who will be producing soon. BTW, it's a nice bovine photo, too.

Evadig · Feb 19, 2024

Callender Girl said:
don't understand your family's reaction, but I also don't understand why some people are grossed out about eating duck eggs.

They won’t eat duck eggs either. Unless possibly if they’ve been hard boiled.

Evadig · Mar 2, 2024

It rained most of the day but cleared up in the evening, so I was able to get a few pictures.

Not much is going on. Winston is not allowed to free range anymore, he is just getting too aggressive. The more he is confined to the coop the more aggressive he gets. I am going to convert the catio into a permanent run for him. Hopefully I can find him a couple girls to hang out with, otherwise he will just have to watch everyone else, and possibly get some free ranging time when no one is around.

One of the turkeys has begun laying! I don't know if it's Helen or Matilda.

Lydwinne (I love the sun shining through her comb!)

Lucy eating a leaf

Annie Beth (she's as big as Eva now!)

Evadig · Mar 4, 2024

Fair warning - post is long and picture heavy

!

Today was warm and sunny and just beautiful. It is going to rain for a bit though, so I went ahead and spring cleaned the Muddy Run even though we will get another week of lower nighttime temperatures.

But first...
Yesterday I noticed Stan's chest feathers were reddish. At first I thought he'd been taking a sand bath in the reddish clay that makes up some of our soil, but since the ground was muddy, that was unlikely. So I caught him and saw he was bleeding from the mouth. A quick Google search brought me to...you guessed it, BYC...and I found a thread dealing with the issue. When we wiped the blood off his beak I realized the tip was missing. How this happened will remain a mystery. We applied flour, corn starch, and an antiseptic wipe and the poor boy behaved wonderfully. It is important to remember that this rooster used to almost go insane if you came anywhere near him. We then put him in a wire dog crate so he couldn't get dirt on his beak, and made a pen nearby into which one of the hens was confined to keep him company. Eva came to say hi and commiserate with him, which is also amazing as he is scared of her as well.

Now moving on to the Muddy Run. At 11:00 I began by removing all the tarps placed on the sides for the winter. Then I started shoveling out the duck pen. An easy way to work out is to lift a large mass of soggy straw at the end of a pitch fork. Incidentally, I never knew how useful a pitch fork is until I needed to clean a duck pen. Next came the goose pen, followed by multiple washings with the hose. Since the water doesn't drain easily, the hallway became rather muddy (hence the name!) :rant

Ducks

Geese

Biddies

Chickens

Turkeys

Break for lunch at 12:30. Then shoveled out all the dirty straw and broke up the compacted dirt in the turkey and chicken runs. That was as bad as shoveling out wet straw because when clay soil compacts, it becomes, literally, as hard as a rock. I nearly opened a blister that was healing, so I took a break and cleaned chicken feeders/waterers. Then I had to get all the mud out of the hallway. By the time I got done with all that it was 3:00.

I decided to move the duck and goose houses which in hindsight I should have done a long time ago as it looks better and is more functional. I also put an unused rabbit house (supposedly!) on top of the goose house roof so I now have a hospital within the Muddy Run. Now sick birds don't need to stay in the basement, which has poor air quality. Stan was the first occupant of the hospital, because I want to make sure his beak has scabbed over before I let him touch dirt again. He let me put my hand into the cage to give him food and water, which is just so incredible.

I was completely done by 5:30, which was good because I had to go to choir practice. I took more than thirty eggs with me and gave them to a few members. There are still nineteen eggs here at home, so the egg situation was definitely out of control! By the way, Matilda is the turkey that is laying.

Matilda trying to convince me to mate with her

I think that is everything I had to share today! :th

If y'all have any advice for Stan's beak (especially, when can he free range again!) please let me know!

Winnie and Hilda playing in the little ditch I dug for them

Minna

Random picture: sunset over the town

Evadig · Mar 18, 2024

@Mantisquailman
@CloneFly
@N F C
@Callender Girl
@BantyChooks
And anyone else who's interested...come see what I got! :wee

Three Mottled Javas and a Buff Brahma!

Evadig · Mar 18, 2024

Eva loves her new friends. She would spend all day watching them if she could. Annie Beth likes them too, but her attention span is much more limited (she also would prefer to taste them!).
The heat lamp is a very low wattage reptile lamp that is farther from the shavings than it appears (my regular heat lamp broke as soon as I got them home). I keep them in the bathroom with the heat turned up and they've been doing fine; they are hardly ever under the lamp despite the low heat emitted. Eva did burn her nose on the shade, but that was because she was too excited to realize she was pressing her nose against it.
All the Javas have got pasty butt, and they are all very skittish. I want to put them up on a table so I'm not towering over them but it just wouldn't be feasible. Maybe when it gets warmer out, and I don't have to keep them in the bathroom...
I also brought Viv into see them because it's too cold for them to go out, and I read somewhere on here that it is important that they come into contact with the ground so that they build up immunity to the soil. So I figured Viv would be the next best thing (she doesn't have any lice or mites and she's gentle). She ate their food, drank their water, and pecked lightly at one. Mostly she spent her time wondering how to get out of there. They didn't seem to be scared of her. I wish one of the hens would adopt them as I would really like them to grow up in the flock, but that probably won't happen - Viv is still just a baby herself, compared to my four big hens (who will be two this year).

CloneFly · Mar 18, 2024

Evadig said:
@Mantisquailman
@CloneFly
@N F C
@Callender Girl
@BantyChooks
And anyone else who's interested...come see what I got!
Three Mottled Javas and a Buff Brahma!

View attachment 3775452

View attachment 3775453

AWWWWWW

Callender Girl · Mar 19, 2024

Cute, cute, cute and cute! The photo of them all lined up really is adorable!

I attended an Iowa State University Extension seminar last night, and the presenter -- a small farms specialist -- said sprinkling a little instant oatmeal on the chicks' feed will help them get over pasty butt. I don't know if she's right, but it might be worth a try? If it works, it would be more pleasant than what I've always done -- picking poop off their butts

Best wishes with your new babies, and thanks for sharing!

Evadig · Mar 19, 2024

Callender Girl said:
Cute, cute, cute and cute! The photo of them all lined up really is adorable!

I attended an Iowa State University Extension seminar last night, and the presenter -- a small farms specialist -- said sprinkling a little instant oatmeal on the chicks' feed will help them get over pasty butt. I don't know if she's right, but it might be worth a try? If it works, it would be more pleasant than what I've always done -- picking poop off their butts

Best wishes with your new babies, and thanks for sharing!

I'll try that and report back here! One in particular has it pretty bad, and she hates being picked up the most :rolleyes:

.

Evadig · Mar 31, 2024

Happy Easter!

Today was warm(er) - it got up to sixty degrees. The chicks had their first outing today. They are 2.5 weeks old so I am hoping I can put them out in the coop by next week. This morning when I came home from church I found Hope had flown out of the brooder. She had made quite the mess on my bathroom floor.

There isn't much of an update to give but I took lots of pictures. I hope you enjoy them!

Jenny (left) and Prudence sharing a nest box