Bettacreek - New home? Plus a pic of some of the ladies here

[Wannabefree]

that's a great price on Cornish X! Wish I could take the extras off your hands!

 

[Bettacreek]

Button quail are dropping like flies. I lost 11 through the night last night. All the dead ones have black chests... Wtf is killing them?! I've lost about 20 so far, but 11 in one night is the highest loss I've had so far.

 

[Bettacreek]

I've stopped losing BQ for a few days now. I'm down to 26 birds. I had 49. I do have one tux left out of the deal and a few whites, so I'm still content. I just really hope that the ones that went to auction didn't start dying off like they did here. I feel horrible that someone might have paid for a box of ticking time bombs.

Nobody has claimed the 14 ameraucanas either. One is that lavender lookin thing that I think is a male. So... I'm going to keep some of the cornish x hens, butcher the males and just stick with the lavender lookin thing as my roo. I'll be keeping the other ameraucanas as well. I figure what the hell, ya know? At this point, I've put more into them than what I'd get out of them, so I might as well raise them up, butcher the excess roos and keep the pullets for eggs. Especially since I won't be getting any eggs from the cornish x for another seven months, IF I'm lucky. I think I have the males and females pinned out of the ameraucanas too, because some are as chunky as cornish x and some are just a tiny bit bigger than the actual cornish x chicks who are less than a week old! I'll keep all of the pullets from them, but will only set eggs that are worth setting... The larger ones. Plus I'll probably hatch out anything that the cornish x pullets lay, just to keep some steady meat in, and maybe raise some of them up. We'll see I guess.

 

[Bettacreek]

I finally made the trip to grab the rest of the soap from my parents' house. I had four batches curing over there. I LIKE having multiple batches in one go... A lot. It works well with my bipolar and bursts of manic phases. I've got four batches wrapped up now since I cannot sleep. Three of the four from the parents' house are good smelling soaps, but two REALLY stand out and make me want to drool... Euphoria and Blueberry. UNFORTUNATELY, these are from two different suppliers, and of course neither are from my main supplier. I do have two other scents that I regularly order from the one supplier though, so that won't be too bad to try to order all three at once. The other supplier, I'd have to check the bottle to see who it's from. I like "ordering" 1oz samplers from other soapers, because for one, it's cheaper, and for two, I get to test out some fragrances I might not have ordered from a supplier... Euphoria being one of them! I'm giving some soap to the cleaning lady, because she's always commenting on how amazing the soap room smells. When she comes to clean, she leaves that room alone, however she always opens the door to take a whiff, lol. I've told her not to bother with cleaning that room, since I can't have any cleaning chems in there, plus it'd be too much of a PITA for her, especially with how poorly organized it is.

The garden is doing alright. It'd be doing superb if I put more effort into it. The beans still amaze me. A few were starting to pop up, so I attacked their area with the hose and by the end of the day, all of my rows looked like they had been up for a few days. The broccoli is growing like crazy too. No heads yet, but I'm hoping something comes along that makes broccoli worthwhile. I'd love to grow it again next year in larger amounts (only have 8 plants in now), but wanted to give it a test run to see if I'd get any production first. The lettuce is looking good... It's not growing fast enough for me, but it is doing well. I guess it's like a pot of water set to boil... I look at it at least three times a day, so it doesn't seem like it ever gets anywhere. I have some tomatoes coming in, but nothing splendid. Maybe eight tomatoes. However, the plants have a lot of blooms, so hopefully they really crank them out. The peppers are kind of at a stand still. The bells are growing so slowly that it feels like I won't get peppers until 2045! The bananas are very limited... Three whopping peppers. :/ Most of the blooms fell off when I transplanted, and nothing has replaced them yet. Other than that, I've got beet seeds in and one sugarbaby watermelon. I planted a few watermelon, but something's been eating them... I assume our "pet" chipmunk.

The birds have been doing well. I've been kicking them out of the room and actually LOCKING them out during the day. Otherwise, the ameraucanas prefer to just sit their arses in the room and do nothing. The smaller ones have started to buddy up with Hobbles, the injured turkey poult. Some of the larger ones can be found out with the other poults and ducks, and then some stick around with the cornish x and Gimpy, the injured duckling. Lazy beasts! The smaller poults are starting to roam with the older poults, but when they hear or see me, they come running in to cuddle or peck around my feet. George got a text yesterday about the birds... I think it was the neighbor. He texted saying something along the lines of "there's a whole lot of baby chickens or ducks or something running around in your front yard, I hope they aren't yours!" Ironically, that "whole lot" of birds wasn't even a quarter of the gang... It was the four older poults, the seven ducks, a cornish x and three of the younger turkey poults. I've got 73 birds, so if he thought 15 birds was a "whole lot", I can only imagine what he'd say if he had come through the driveway and seen the rest of the 73!!! It'll be interesting when the inmates come back to do the lawn... Last time I introduced the ducklings to them, but now they'll be meeting an extra six poults, 40 cornish x chicks and 14 ameraucanas. I bet they'll have one heck of a laugh over that, and will probably be wondering what they'll come across the NEXT time they come!!

 

[Denim Deb]

Why does the neighbor care if their your birds or not?

 

[Bettacreek]

Honestly, I don't know, lol. We live too far away from him for them to ever go near their house. He's the Deputy for the prison. I think he was just joking around. We were trying to figure out why he said "hope they aren't your's" as well! I don't think it was anything malicious or anything of the sort though. Today, since I haven't slept, the birds got to go out at the ass crack of dawn. The ducks were the first to hear me and they came running. I'm just leaving the door open for now, so anyone who wants to sleep in can. Later I'll go boot everyone out of there and lock it up.

 

[Denim Deb]

Wish I could sleep in. I don't feel like getting up and leaving, but since it's going to be so hot, I really should get moving soon.

 

[Bettacreek]

I wish I could've slept period, lol. It started out that it was just too hot. I'm apparantly extremely picky about sleeping, because if I cannot touch George, I don't sleep... Well, it was so hot and miserable that I couldn't even touch him with my ankle, lol. So, I ended up slurping down some coffee and wrapping soap. Since I'm up, maybe I'll get breakfast in the kids early, then hit the compost pile to spread on the garden.

 

[SSDreamin]

I wish I could grow broccoli, or cauliflower, or lettuce for that matter! Everybody tells me 'lettuce is so easy, anybody can grow it!' Well, in all my years of trying, I have yet to taste one leaf of lettuce!
Did you check the local reg's before putting in the poultry? Maybe that's why the neighbor said what he did Seems like a weird thing to say...

 

[Denim Deb]

I was thinking the same thing. I'd hate to see you get into trouble.