Consolidated Kansas

[sarajoy]

Sarajoy I think if you go with the assumption that you will pull the fermentation from the air you should also know that you will pull in mold spores. The ACV actually helps prevent the mold.>

Huh, well, I did use ACV in my first batch. And they are loving it! So it can't be too bad for them. I think I'm going to get the book the writer of that article was basing their opinion on, and see if I can make heads or tails of the chemistry of why they say not using the ACV is better. But for now that is what I'm using.


>At any rate we can all agree I think that a Great Pyr is a wonderful dog.>

YUP!!!

 

[sarajoy]

I'm home on the puter today cuz its raining/sleeting today. The Amish crew JUST finished the reshingling yesterday before this started. Glad that much is done. They were supposed to work on the siding tomorrow, but if the weather isn't better we'll have to see. I'm just waiting for them to get back to the coop!! They did the frame a couple weeks ago, but haven't been able to make it back till yesterday when a crew of five stripped off the old shingles (two layers) and put up the new - all in less than one day's work. I was astonished.... Sara

 

[Trish44]

Oh, man guess I had better chime in!!
Good news, Ive got baby rosecombs and wyandottes hatching!!

Now, I am having some serious computor problems. So If you do not see me on, its cause I can't get on. I have done just about everything I can. Says Im missing a file.

I have made sure Ive got all junk off, and got rid of any malware. Where in the "H" does that crap come from? Defraged, and something else in that category. Used system restore, then it comes up and says, something about a partition table, and no OS files on found on disk! Didn't know there were tables in the the machine down there, and I have no idea what a OS file is, and I think I need to just wipe the whole slate clean, and start again.

Now, I have to go and get ready to go to work, then at 4:30, have to go to a leader workshop somewhere with the extension agent.

So supper for hubby is ready, I made it on here, so that takes a big load off my shoulders. But I still don't think this machine is right. If it goes to sleep, it won't wake up and run. It may be time for a new one, this machine is several years old. Put two kids thru high school, one thru college, and this is really the first time it has ever never failed to work. Running Vista hummm maybe I need to get rid of more stuff on here. I think that may be what happend, I may accidently removed a file I should not have.

I'm sorry to say it, but if there is a missing file from the Operating System you probably will have to wipe the drive & start over, unless a computer pro can restore it. If it's a virus they probably could save it, but not always even then. I hope you had your important files backed up. Congrats on the chicks!

Well I looked out the window earlier & there was my white leghorn, so where she was earlier who knows. I'm happy she is back now in the coop though & I didn't lose another hen. I do feel like that raccoon snuck in when the dogs were napping & ate the head off that hen. I sure hope we don't start having problems with those again, they're just as bad as the possums. I haven't seen either one since I have had the dogs here, but maybe this one was desperate. We have a lot of trees here in the front of my house where I have all the pens & new coop at, so it could potentially hide in one & I wouldn't see it necessarily & there are many more trees further down from the orchard on the other side of the fence they can hide in.

Hawkeye, I'm sorry you're having such a bad day, that was the pits about your refrigerator & all the food. I hope things get better for you.

Sarajoy, I'm also using the ACV for my FF & the birds love it. I have only totally cleaned out my container once since I started. There was a tiny bit of mold up around the sides where there was just some residue of the feed & it was up above the level of the rest of it. I cleaned out the container with some bleach & soap & water & started over & it took a few days to really get started again. I'm being more careful now to scrape any stuff down the sides to keep it from building up there again so it won't mold. I think just the part exposed more to the air was all that got mold in it, not the main batch of it.

I've got chicks hatching today too. One lone little Salmon Faverolle was in there with 10 Wheaten Ameraucana eggs. So far it is the only one that has hatched but there are pips in the other eggs. It keeps yelling at them to come out & keep it company. I moved about 4 more larger chicks out to the brooder today & while I was changing water & feed one of the Ameraucanas flew out & is at large in the garage. Geez, I hate it when they get loose, it's really hard to catch them in there. They can get under the rabbit cages & between boxes or under the lawn mower & I can't get them. It was under my car when I finally gave up & came back in. Hopefully I will be able to catch it later. It will get cold in there on that cement floor.

 

[RoosterLew]

Been doing ALOT of reading on FF lately, and this is how I understand it:

You do not NEED UP/ACV to ferment feed...it actually doesn't even speed it up.

However, it does do alot of other things for your FF....so it is still a good idea to add it in from time to time. But adding TOO much can actually prevent LAB fermentation.

That's my Simple Summation of FF and ACV..
SO , Am I anywhere near right?

 

[michelleml]

those of you who have hoop houses. What are the dimension when complete? Orshlens has cattle panels $20.88 and i was trying to figure out how many i needed to make a run for my new coop. Need it big enough for 20 chickens

Thanks

 

[HEChicken]

A lot of it depends on how low and wide or tall and narrow you make it. Most people make the ends out of 8' lumber, which makes them tall enough for a tallish person to stand comfortably inside. I am short and had 10' lumber on hand so I used that for the end pieces which makes it shorter (though I can still stand comfortably upright inside) but the overall square footage of it is larger.

Mine is 12' long (3 panels) by 10' wide, for a square footage of 120 sq. ft. If I had used 8' lumber, and the same length, it would have been 96 sq. feet.

Run space is generally recommended to be 10 sq. ft per bird, so for 20 birds, you need 200 sq. ft. So, if you use 10' lumber for the width, it would need to be 20' long to get your 200 sq. ft. The thing I don't know is how stable it would be at 20 ft long, but I can't see a reason not to do it. You would need to join two boards to get the length but a good idea would be to have cross braces going across at intervals too, for stability, so if you put one of the cross braces at the join, that would help strengthen the joint.

 

[Trish44]

those of you who have hoop houses. What are the dimension when complete? Orshlens has cattle panels $20.88 and i was trying to figure out how many i needed to make a run for my new coop. Need it big enough for 20 chickens

Thanks

Mine is 8X16, that takes 4 livestock panels to make that length & it's tall enough for me to stand up in & I am tall. I have about 16-18 guineas in there & two peafowl & they have enough room to move around fine. I would make it as big as you can because then you can always add more chickens if you want. I'm getting ready to build another one for my broiler chickens coming soon.

 

[sarahswank]

Just wanted to introduce myself! Living out in Southwest Kansas. Currently have a "flock" of 46 chickens of various breeds.

 

[michelleml]

thanks hechicken and trish. My run will only be used for when im not home but most of the time my birds will be out free ranging. I hope we can get started on this very soon

. Im trying to figure cost and make a big enough run with out busting the bank.

Michelle

 

[Trish44]

Just wanted to introduce myself! Living out in Southwest Kansas. Currently have a "flock" of 46 chickens of various breeds.

Feel free to jump in any time, glad to have you here.

thanks hechicken and trish. My run will only be used for when im not home but most of the time my birds will be out free ranging. I hope we can get started on this very soon

. Im trying to figure cost and make a big enough run with out busting the bank.

Michelle

I used a metal plate at the joints because I started out thinking I was going to make mine 12 ft & then changed my mind & made it 16 ft instead, so I just added on another board to make it the right length. It worked fine to do that & seems sturdy enough. These things are very heavy duty with the livestock panels. I don't think anything could move them if they tried. You will be surprised how handy these things are to have around once you build it.