Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chicken Rustler]

Quote: I do give lessons on how to increase flock size/egg production OVERNIGHT literally overnight!!!
For lesson 1. Under my avatar click on "MY COOP". scroll down and read the story of Chicken Rustler. Once it is clear you have done lesson one we can move to lesson 2. A shopping trip to the midnight chicken supply at the corner of grab em n run !!!

 

[TerrorBird]

Quote:
The way they fly is also totally cool. They like to visit our suet cakes so I'm always pleased when they come through.

 

[Sudsy Chick]

Hi Everyone I'm very, very far behind here, so many posts in the last week or so!

I wanted to let you all know how well Miss Frodo is doing She has been sleeping in the coop and hanging out with the birds all day.

Then I couldn't find her on Thursday...looked EVERYWHERE! Finally found her in...the BROODY COOP!

She is feeling so great that she wants some babies!

So - does anyone in the area have 4 to 6 fertile bantam eggs to purchase? I'd really love to get some more belgians or japanese, but am not terribly picky!

(They do need to be bantam though, I don't want her to have chicks that are larger than her in a few weeks!)

Thanks in advance!

 

[Sweetlilbaby]

When is the best time to spread grass seed? I have a bag of it to fill in the areas of my yard that the grass turned to mud.
and I'm excited i almost have enough from selling things on e-bay to get a kennel kit for the ducks to be in.

 

[Hinotori]

OK so this may go down as one of the more psycho SUPERBOWL related happenings.



See a friend messaged me bummed that they were having to work, wouldn't get to see the game AND wanted some BBQ ribs I was making rather than frozen pizza. OK no problem right! So I dished up some ribs, Mac salad, a lunch size bag of chips, a Capri sun juice and a blueberry muffin. IN the car and off we go to serve lunch/dinner. So we got in the car at 7:44pm 94.9 miles/1hr 36mi later we were serving lunch in Tualatin, OR. Yup we took Cloverleaf / Jeanine food at work. Just couldn't take anymore of the girl whineing about not getting any superbowl food. And we made it home safe at 11:38pm.

BTW how was the game who won did I win my bets??? Oh wait I guess ya gotta bet in order to win !!

I am just such a!!!

That is so sweet and thoughtful!

 

[CarolynF]

When is the best time to spread grass seed? I have a bag of it to fill in the areas of my yard that the grass turned to mud.
and I'm excited i almost have enough from selling things on e-bay to get a kennel kit for the ducks to be in.

Now is good. A couple of things to remember.... don't use that area for walking or anything else until it's well established and has been mowed a couple of times. When it's young and tender it doesn't hold up to wear and tear. If the ground has much slope heavy rain may work against you, so you may need a good layer of peat or something to prevent erosion & rivulets.

Some people mix the grass seed with sand to keep from over seeding since grass seed is kind of pricey.

 

[ChickAudie]

This is a really good solution, which might not always work, but it's so much better to be pro-active. I have made many folks into pasture-raised egg enthusiasts by showing then the difference in our eggs and store eggs- try cracking the eggs on separate plates, dishes, etc- show them how the sore eggs are watery, the yolks are flat, etc. I explain how commercial growers add GMO corn and soy, and conditions are so filthy the eggs are soaked in chlorine, etc. I demonstrated how clothing washes in Clorox still smelled of Clorox, meaning it had soaked in. Eggs are porous, therefore the chlorine soaks in and they are eating bleach. Giving away a dozen eggs was hard for us because we were not getting too much excess, and we eat A LOT of eggs, but it was awesome insurance to help our neighbors appreciate our efforts.

That is some great advise RainMom! And wow, yuck!!!

So I'm from Washington,never knew about this website, it's great by the way...

I'm learning way more by reading and asking questions on here then anywhere else. I've had chickens for just under a year, so I would say I'm still a newbie...

Hello and

Quote:
RainMom, if you are interested there will be another meet up in Tacoma on the 16th of Feb. I am hoping to go to the Monroe show in March!!

Had to share!

I took some pictures of our gathering today at Ikea. What a great time I had meeting all of you. I'm sorry they are so blurry but my hands wouldn't stop shaking for some reason. I think it was having to get up so early and drink coffee then drive to Carolyn's and drink coffee....yeah. We have a running joke going about how I get lost so easy. Carolyn, I got home without making one wrong turn! LOL. Good to meet you all.
Kathy
AKA LaughingFeather

Those are good pics LaughingFeather!! It was SO nice to meet all of you!!! I am awkward in social meetings and am not a big conversation starter myself, but it was a great time!! Did anybody else see the tupperware packs for $5??? Better than the $20 rubbermaid!

Quote:
Those sound pretty!! I also see that you can transport to TacTown! I might have to take up that offer when I get more chicken skills!!

Chick kisses & mama time!

Cutie chickie-poohs!!! Love the chicken pics!

The new Go Daddy commercial is so .... um...

NO kidding, painful to watch! You can tell that she did not enjoy that at all!!!

Loved the ad during the superbowl that was a replay of Paul Harvey's tribute to farmers called "So God Made a Farmer". You can hear it here, it's a commercial for Dodge Ram but the photography is really striking.

I loved that commercial! But I am partial to farmers

Fun and not-so-fun times today.

For the not-so-fun: I still have to go out to the run, get Rhodie and put her back into the coop. The big 'ol-chunk-o-Drama discovered that she could sit in the pop door and refuse to let Blackie and Latte go in the coop. When we moved her, Rhodie ran out to attack, and was attacking pretty hard. As luck would have it, the automatic pop door went into it's closing cycle, and she, Blackie and Latte were locked out. So, DH and I took Blackie and Latte out of the run and put them in the coop through the clean-out door and left Rhodie stuck in the run to cool off. That was a couple of hours ago. Guess I better go deal with her now. Wish I didn't have to go back outside tonight.

And for the fun: The experimental eggs are in the bators. They have been documented, photographed, candled and set. My kid is very excited. In the candling process we found 2 with significant hairline cracks, so we took those out of the bunch, cracked them open and photographed them. Both appeared to be fertile, and one even appeared to already be developing a little bit. That was pretty cool for my son to see. He couldn't believe that was the start of a baby chick. He's pretty excited. The "not-turned" eggs won't be turned with exception of every few days when we take them out to candle them. We bought an egg candler and the little bugger works well. Now, in the name of science, we finally have an egg candler.

Whooo-Hoooo!! I am so excited!! Drama seems like she just has an attitude problem, lol! Sounds like my kids.... Rhodie lighten up later on?

So my week has sucked. I lost a brahma pullet and my brahma cockerel to botulism. The pullet went fast, the cockerel lingered with me force feeding him. I finally had to do what was right and put him down. One of his other pullets was a bit ill, but she recovered. So I've got three chickens buried in the garden now. They had the really lose feathers that seemed to come out just from touching them. I really miss that big old boy. My husband has forbid me to talk about him for a while. I think it upset him a lot. Mongo was his favorite.

The brahma hen I got in 2011 is laying internally I think. Her eggs had been very large with watery yolks and soft shelled since she started laying again after being broody. She's acting like the other internal layers have. I felt her, but she fights so bad, I can't really tell.

Late Friday I had one of my 22 week old EE pullets injure her leg. She was dragging it and hopping. I couldn't feel anything out of place or broken. I put her inside in a carrier. She was getting very upset and I relented and let her back out with the others Saturday afternoon, so she could be with her two sisters. I massaged her leg and moved it around very carefully before letting her go, and after she went up on the roost. Today she was walking on it with a heavy limp, but was actually using it. Her tail was up and she went right after scratch this morning. That is a huge improvement from the day before. She been snuggling with the ameraucanas because they don't peck others for shoving their heads under them. One of her sisters started laying this last week, so she should be close as well. I think she flew into the run fence. All three of those pullets have done that before, and one got stuck in it.

So I don't think we'll be getting hatchery birds again. Out of 22 females, that's 1 known death from internal laying, 1 that I think is laying internally, 1 that had a heart attack, 1 that survived internal laying but doesn't lay anymore, 1 that has some sort of spinal deformation that's twisting her, 1 that's laid four eggs in two years, and 2 of the meanest birds that tried to eat everyone else alive.

We're going to stick with ameraucanas and a few silkies.

I gave the two silkie hens haircuts yesterday and they are much less flighty now. I took off a good C chunk on each side of the eyes. It stopped the head bobbing and walking with head almost on the ground immediately. Now to get them to get out of the habit of rubbing their heads on the ground to wet the feathers and get them up out of the face. The worst offender has an almost black face and head on her splash body. I'll probably have to put them in cage for a few days.

Oh Hintori, this sucks

I hope that things get better soon! I am picturing your silkies before and after haircut

I am crossing my fingers that this week will be the last one with the coop in the garage! I have a second friend coming over to help paint while the first one works on the roof. It'll be kind of crowded in there, but hopefully we can get it all done. I have extra motivation to clear out the garage - today we bought a new (used) truck! I was thinking I'd get an SUV crossover to replace our van, but I fell head over heels in love with a Chevy Avalanche. I drove my new beauty home and had to leave it in the open because we can't fit it in the garage. Grrrr. I'm so paranoid that someone will break into it before I can hide it away.

I'm so happy, I'll still be able to haul cargo! I measured the Traverse and I don't think I could have fit a sheet of plywood inside it. My new toy will hold a huge stack of plywood, or a pallet of bricks, and tow over 8,000 lbs!

I hope my son take a good, long nap tomorrow. Then all three of us can work on the coop. And maybe I can work out a deal to trade my van for the rest of the labor on the coop. Suddenly we are out a whole bunch of money for some reason....

Jennifer

YAY!!! Pick-up trucks!! I will pray that the vandals and thieves leave your new truck alone!

Happy Monday! We're up and going. Kids are eating breakfast. I wanted to let y'all know that if you need humane, great tasting eggs to supplement during this winter time, Smith Brothers Farms has great eggs! I did a bunch of research and they had the most humane practices of anything I found anywhere, ever, and their eggs are large organic brown eggs. I opened them up this morning right next to our own eggs and they looked the same inside!

I was glad to be able to eat eggs from hens I know aren't abused, neglected, and tortured, even if it cost me $4.29/dz. Well worth it for me.

We have Latin/Art co-op this morning at 10. I drop John off since I'm not teaching anything this week and take the little ones grocery shopping. So nice with only 2 kids at the store, makes it more fun to walk around, give them jobs, and teach them how to choose groceries. I love shopping with them! Looking forward to our morning.

I got the nest boxes predator proofed yesterday, yay!!! Filled in the gap on the sides and used weather proofing foam strip along the top edge of the whole thing where the lid comes down Totally made my week, knowing that Lucy and her chicks will now be safe from predators, and of course everyone else too.

Happy Monday to you. too!!! I love Smith Brother's for milk delivery!! Makes me think of simpler days

glad to know their eggs are wnners as well

Again, it was an absolute pleasure to meet all of you! DH got to hear about my new chicken farmer friends!! Can't wait to see the chicks that Itsren is hatching!!!


*whew* That only took all morning to post...haha!!

 

[ChickAudie]

OK so this may go down as one of the more psycho SUPERBOWL related happenings.



See a friend messaged me bummed that they were having to work, wouldn't get to see the game AND wanted some BBQ ribs I was making rather than frozen pizza. OK no problem right! So I dished up some ribs, Mac salad, a lunch size bag of chips, a Capri sun juice and a blueberry muffin. IN the car and off we go to serve lunch/dinner. So we got in the car at 7:44pm 94.9 miles/1hr 36mi later we were serving lunch in Tualatin, OR. Yup we took Cloverleaf / Jeanine food at work. Just couldn't take anymore of the girl whineing about not getting any superbowl food. And we made it home safe at 11:38pm.

BTW how was the game who won did I win my bets??? Oh wait I guess ya gotta bet in order to win !!

I am just such a!!!

WOW!!! CR you are AWESOME!!! Now I'ma little mad I didn't complain about not having Superbowl food!!!

 

[Sweetlilbaby]

Now is good. A couple of things to remember.... don't use that area for walking or anything else until it's well established and has been mowed a couple of times. When it's young and tender it doesn't hold up to wear and tear. If the ground has much slope heavy rain may work against you, so you may need a good layer of peat or something to prevent erosion & rivulets.

Some people mix the grass seed with sand to keep from over seeding since grass seed is kind of pricey.

thanks. I"ll seed the area that nobody walks on and wait for the rest of it. There will be some walking on it but not heavy traffic. The other area i'll have to wait til i have my ducks in their own pen so I wont have to let the chickens out in order for the ducks to get to the feed. That will be nice!! so 2 weeks of no free ranging. sounds pretty easy.
I have where the chicken pen use to be to reseed some areas of that grew back and shot up to 2 ft tall fast, the rest the chickens killed the roots of the grass so I need to reseed it. The grass seed I have I took from my parents barn. Just stabbed their 100 lb bag and got like 20 lbs of it. I'm not worried about over seeding. Actually planning on spreading some of it in the front yard as well cause we had issues keeping it alive in the summer. The city of tacoma redid our yard and put grass down that is SHADE ONLY. It said right on the wrapper it came in. I was so mad about that but they said they only had to replace it with whatever grass they choose.

 

[itsren]

Can ya tell me what to eggs where cracked? I had a PRIR that was cracked on my last set. I am waiting to hear back from someone on FB about some Marans eggs. Then I will candle mine and set them tonight. The one that was starting to develop was prolly from Thursday, I got out there late and all the eggs were in one box, so 5 hens laid that day, so in total the first egg was under a hen for about 5ish hours.

Yes. Actually I can since my son documented them so well. They were both PRIR. And, if you care to know, one was 58g and one was 59g. TMI, huh? LOL! We even took photos of the cracks when they were being candled, so as soon as DH downloads that camera, I can post those.

BTW - I'm assuming RIR is Rhode Island Red, but what does the P stand for? Am I guessing these correclty? BO - Buff Orpington, GSL - Golden Sex Link?????

Glad to hear you are feeling better!

EDITED: Sorry, I read his records wrong. One egg was a PRIR, the other was a GSL. They were very hairline cracks that we did not notice until we candled. After we candled, we looked closely at them, and sure enough, the cracks were barely visible.