Quail_Antwerp: Words from the Barnyard...

[Quail_Antwerp]

Well, chipmunk, for all we know, she's not even "kinda mad" at us. My BIL (her husband) has a history of doing this type of thing, especially using my Dh's name, to get what he wants because he doesn't feel we would care.

Or that we'll find out.

Or that it doesn't matter, they don't feel it's unethical, they think it's funny when you find out and it makes you mad....

They are just so wrapped up in living a lifestyle that is filled with material things, that makes them look good, that gives them everything they want, and they are snobs.

I personally feel that they must be extremely sad and lonely people to act like they do.

The sad thing is, if they wouldn't act like this or do these things, we'd have no problems with them. None.

 

[framing fowl]

Grrrrr....... people can be so frustrating........

I was hoping to catch the daily livestock report here this morning! How's Trouble and Blessing? What cute names!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Daily Livestock report?! LOVE IT! LOL hmmm might have to go in my journal title!! Livestock is much better conversation than inlaws!

Look at that, I'm smiling already!!

Trouble and Blessing are doing great!! They sure are an ornery pair, tho!

I told E, I don't remember Chase being as ornery as these two are, but he assures me he was.

I've been getting FOUR eggs a day out of the Bantam coop!! WOOT! Now to just figure out which four gals are a laying them! They are cream to light brown in color, so it could be bantam buff brahma, d'Anver, or even the bantam cochins laying them. Time to start separating!!

It's been freezing here, and still my roosters are "feeling their oats"! Crazy boys!

OH! Last night I had an escapee call duck, my Fawn drake. He resembles the grey drake, but he's a blue fawn. That stinker, well, when i was feeding them, we're not sure if he was pushed out the door or if he jumped out the door....but he was a little tricky to catch.

Somebody said call ducks are "friendly little ducks and make great pets". Somebody didn't own call ducks. :/

So we're going to be braving the cold here in a minute, and working on dividing off the big coop. Here's our options:

Option 1-
Get wall fencing and door up in middle of coop, move all large fowl to old part of coop and house Trouble and Blessing in the new half of the coop.

It will mean keeping the calves separate from the chickens and being able to keep an eye on calf poopies better, and keeps the chickens off the feed barrels in there.

or

Option 2-
Get wall fencing and door up in middle of coop, move all large fowl to old part of coop and house all of the bantams in the new part of the coop and move Trouble and Blessing to the Bantam coop, which is on the back side of the barn Chase and Boss use. We'd also be blocking off the window and run door to the bantam coop to increase the warmth for Trouble and Blessing.

This would have my bantams in warmer housing for winter, which hopefully would mean less loss, and would give the calves a bigger barn to live in. It would also mean I could open the current bantam run up to the duck run, giving the ducks a bigger area.

I'm kind of leaning toward Option 2. I think it will be better all the way around for all the critters.

Either way, I still have to get out there (like now) and divide the coop.....

 

[framing fowl]

Thanks Quail! Yay on the eggs! I'm finally getting eggs from my two adults who just got done molting. I've gotten 7 in the past 5 days! My 3 Barneys are just starting to get reddened combs and wattles and they're right at 20 weeks so it could be any time for them.

I grew up listening to the daily livestock and grain reports on AM radio in the morning at breakfast. Then at lunch, it was a peanut butter and honey sandwhich with Paul Harvey!

Not knowing your setup, option 2 sounds good because then you have chickens with chickens and cows with cows for feeding and such... not sure if it makes much difference but it sounds good

 

[keljonma]

Ok Virus via Facebook:

My FB account is set up so that I recieve email notifications when I get a pm on FB and I can check the pm via email. Well, I got a message saying my friend on FB had sent me a message asking "is this your pic?" when I opened the email to read it, a virus was dumped into my pc.

I thought I had all the virus/spyware protection so that wouldn't happen. Apparantly when I allowed my nephew to work on my pc, he took off my protection.

Be careful who you allow to do work on your pc!

Sorry to hear about your pc problems.

The same thing just happened a couple weeks ago to my sister and nieces. Their spyware didn't even catch the thing - worm and trojan clean up didn't help either. They had to completely reboot their computer to the original software and lost a lot of files.

My 15yo niece tells me she was working on one of her farms on FB the other day without problems. But she is not opening any more emails from "friends" these days. She has asked her true friends send her email on her private email address - so hopefully that will limit any more exposure.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Well, E came up with an option 3, so he's going to try to explain that one to me and we'll see if I like it or not...

We normally try to eat lunch at noon, and well, we missed noon, so I'm fixing a late lunch....I'm fixing some deer steaks smothered in mushrooms and onions with mashed taters and gravy, stuffing, and probably some asparagus on the side.

Yummo.

The steaks are simmering now and filling the whole house with a delicious smell!

Something else a little bit interesting...E has been reading Chickens for Dummies that I borrowed from Becca. He read about using a van for a chicken coop, and so now we're tossing around the idea of taking the old van that doesn't run in our backyard and making a coop out of it!

So now I have the problem of deciding, which breed do I house in there?!

 

[keljonma]

So is the van E's option #3 ? That would work for the bantams I think - or if you are planning on using it for BLRW or Turkey breeding housing.

I have seen it done on large farms. The van/mini-bus is moved around the farm so the birds don't scratch the grass to death in one spot (also supposed to help with keeping parasites down).


Good luck with your decision.

We ended up with 1/2 a foot of snow here. The sun is out today but it is only 20 degrees - and windy. So not a warm day at all. How is the weather down by you?

 

[lorihadams]

Girl, I never get tired of reading the Livestock Report

I can't wait for tuesday so I can see what happened with you at the auction on Monday!!!

I'm up to 4 eggs a day from my 6 assorted hens and my light brahma rooster (the only one of 10 that survived the massacre a while ago, go figure) finally crowed this week! It sounded more like someone gagging the first time but now he's really getting the hang of it! He is one BIG rooster, too! He looks like an ostrich when he runs

So, what other animals do you have now besides the birds? I'm trying to keep everything straight with all the shuffling....

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

So, what other animals do you have now besides the birds? I'm trying to keep everything straight with all the shuffling....

Besides the birds??

Let's see...on the first day of New Year's my true love gave to me....
Five pens of rabbits,
Four head of cattle,
3 Barking Dogs,
2 Crazy cats, and
1 Alpaca that still runs from me.....

Sorry, couldn't help myself....

This coming Monday, if the weather allows, I'm going to auction to get straw...JUST straw...nothing else. I'm taking Ernie's truck and NO ANIMAL cages, so the only thing I'll be able to haul home is STRAW!

We woke up this morning to a deep, wet, great for making snowmen and snowball fights and snow angels Snow. Ick. Thankfully, though, it's not too terribly cold! I can handle this! The snow is actually pretty and I didn't have snots freezing in my nose as I walked out to feed calves and chickens.

It was great!

I also took some pictures!

This is the view out my back door this morning:

This is the tree right out our livingroom window (coops and future van coop beyond the tree):

"Snow Fence" you can barely see my ducks inside their run!

And, here's one of Trouble, from Monday when we brought him home:

And this is Blessing, having her first bottle here:

 

[Farmfresh]

So is the van E's option #3 ? That would work for the bantams I think - or if you are planning on using it for BLRW or Turkey breeding housing.

I have seen it done on large farms. The van/mini-bus is moved around the farm so the birds don't scratch the grass to death in one spot (also supposed to help with keeping parasites down).

Rather like my "Chick Mobile!"