the crooked little chicken house

“Teacher was fired. For chrissake....”

“as was the principal - however he was asked to resign for good reason.”

“Geesh, that's disgusting....”

“I think my sweet afro duck couple is gone...

Another bite taken from a kitty, and all but the bravest are staying in the house.

Lost the quail to heat.”

“saw the ducks, guess they were hiding in the tall grass.”

“The new homemade incubator is uP and running. I Put in the first batch today. My egg turner holds 41 eggs so i should be able to fill it after 2 more days. I'm geeked!
When should I start candeling them?”

“When you are ready to make them into an omlet. But you'll need a bunch of candles.

:-O”

“MmMMmmm, ommmmmlets....”

“Congrats strat, atter about 10 days is when you candle'em to make sure they're developing.

hehe tech”

“mucho data about candling on the internet. LOL...”

“Anybody paid for fencing in the last year? I had 2 guys come today for a goat-fencing quote. Nothing permanent, just what's called "field fencing" 4' high, bout 1200' give or take, t-posts with a few wood posts for corners and bracing. Guess I'll do a gate too. Nothing fancy, I just want some scrub goats to clear some territory.

Man, goats is high this time of year too!”

“Nothin worse than a bunch of stoned out goats...

Ape, buy a case a beer and I'll come over and help you build that fence.”

“Yeah twig, I'm aware. I just wondered what youse guys usually do.

Got 41 eggs incubating. I only get a dozen eggs a day so it took 4 days to fill it. This is day 7 for the first dozens eggs.

Were thinking about doing quail next time. I guess I'll just get the eggs from one of the big hatcheries. Any recommendations?”

“I don't have an incubator, nor have I ever had successful broody hens.

I got quail from a co worker, I've never orderd online.

we definately have a fisher, or worse, the neighborhood dog, or god forbid, a bear. Saying that based on the trampled brush.

Poor Bunnicula, who was enjoying life outside, yet in a cage, met her demise recently. whatever it was, ripped a hole in the chicken wire to get to her.”

“oh, and pushed her cage 10+ feet trying to get to her.”

“It's always something....I lost another batum. Only heavy birds for me from now on. The hawks here definitely prefer the small chickens.

If we do quail, I plan on releasing them out on my hunting land in the nearby mountains. We'll see.

I've candles some of the eggs and most of them show a distinct dark area. A couple of the green ones(we call them dinosaur eggs) dont let any light in at all. Might as well put a rock on the candler, lol”

“At first it bothered the heck outa me to lose one'a "my girls", but my wife was like "easy come easy go I guess". Tis a fact of chicken life twig.

Funny story: My one broody cuckoo maran hatched only 1 of her 10 eggs, man is she a dang good mama too. They are in the camper/coop, well there were 3 pre-teens in there and Mama would give'em heck if they even thawt about gettin' near her one precious baby. Well when I started opening the coop up to let them free range, the other adults and roosters started getting up in it to check it out and them 3 pre-teens went nuts. They dove under that Mama with her one baby and she was cool with it. So the last 2 weeks she's been mama to her 1 and to them 3. Well heyull, something the other day, a fox I'm sure, got that awesome mom, so the baby now runs around with her 3 adopted "siblings", which was great, cause that baby would have died for sure without Mama otherwise.

Oh, we have 11 baby guineas with a great guinea-wop mom too!

Strat, u want some baby guineas? Their shipping ain't too much I don't thank, but I'd hafta do like overnight, or 2 day, or some such.”

“O, twig the best place to get an incubator is a used one from Ebay. And them egg turners ain't worth didley, you don't need one for successful hatching ..... but you DO need a bator with a fan, makes a pretty big difference. Look for a Hovabator(mine) or a Little Giant brand.”

“Man thanks Aped00d but mama won't let me have no guineas. She's worried about them bothering the neighbors a quarter mile away(eyeroll). Besides the local feed store still has chicks if I really wanted some.

I built my bator out of a minifridge. Got a thermostat, fan, light bulb(heat source), an egg turner and a cheap digital thermometer/hygrometer at Wallmart. Wired that ish all up and booya, it's killer. I've got 41 soldiers in there right now. I'm hoping for a 70% hatch rate but I know it could be less. It's fun and interesting to me. I'm really interested to see what kind of breed mixes I end up with since I've got a mixed flock. Might end up with some pretty cool birds.”

“I remember u building that, I wuz jellus.”

“Ape, as you may know tinwork at the U of A and today they had a surplus auction where they sell off anbunch of file cabinets and old laptops and there's no telling what else. Today they had an industrial incubator in the mix. This thing was huge. Like bigger than a full sized side by side home fridge/freezer. It had all electronic controls, I'm talkin top of the line. It sold for 90$! The misses was like NO WAY MISTER! lol, I could incubate 4 or 5 hundred in that thing. Oh well.”

“OMG! So I'm guessin' it weren't you that paid the measly 90 bux?

Summa the dirt scratchin' reds around here might shewt a feller for such a deeevice!

Heck, I need ta see if WCU is gonna have such a thang?!”

“saw the predator, it's a very healthy, beautiful, brindle coyote”

“Brindle coyote? Never heard of that. Hybrid, perhaps?”

“I bet you're right Tbait. We have a fox that appears to be a cross between and a grey and a red. Haven't seen it lately.
Twigdude, better pop a cap in his ass!

Well my first batch of incubator eggs didn't make it. I made a couple of rookie mistakes. I have a new batch of 21 eggs in there now....”

“heh heh, how cute, a virgin egg-hatcher

I jes hatched out a batch... looks like I'm getting plenty of gals not gittin laid tho. Way more'n half of my eggs are infertile.

UPDATE ! :

->End of July had about an acre of overgrowd creek area fenced in.
->Wednesday went and picked up 3 goats, 2 3yr old angora mohair wethers (no bawls), and a 1.5 yr old french alpine billy still with testes, named Elvis. Gotta find him some ladies.
->Saturday went and picked up 2 10 month old donkeys, a jack and jenny (unrelated which is good). Both, like the goats, are nice and friendly as can be. The jenny is called a .... (not a zedonk, that's apparently when the mama is a zebra)... this lil jenny's dad is a zebra, I think my wife said they're called a donk-zebra. Anyhow, she has some striping on her legs, and according to reading on the net, she may be infertile like a mule. Guess we'll wait and see.

Ain't too much cuter than an aquarium full of fuzzy lil chix skwirlin' about.”

“Wow, you got a petting zoo goin Ape.

Man, something tore my flock a new one. Came home Sat and 7 birds were missing. found the rooter in the woods. Not sure what got them.”

“My Gawd strat, gives you a crappy feelin don't it?

Not so much a petting zoo, more like weedeaters.

I just learned something today for you Strat.... when you're 'bating eggs, them eggs that ain't popped yet in 21 or 22 days, let'em ride for several more, even a week. I was candling the eggs left over and most of them were nothing but clear chikin juice, not fertile. A few of them were hard, dark goo inside, too small to be live chikins. So I take all the eggs I've culled out at lunch to bust on the roots around the chikin coop to be et up (that's when I let'em out, at lunchish). Well them 3 naisty blackish blobs were indeed baby chikins! One of them I hurried back to the bator to warm up ... but it died, I mean, after all it was bonkt onto a hard root. A few more days and they'da hatched out just fine .... dangit! Next time I'll let'em ride another week in the bator and see if they are aiight, before I abort.”

“Yeah several of mine were quite developed. I let em ride till day 26. Round about day 15, I came out one mornin and it was 97deg in there so I eased the tstat up just a c-hair and went to work....bad idea! When I got home from work it was sittin at 104, and had been all day. In hindsight, they would have been just fine at 97. I just can't ever touch the tstat unless I'm gonna be there for a couple of hours to monitor it. Man I hope I get a few out of this batch, I'm running out of birds!

So are the goats clearing out that lot pretty good? The mrs wants to get 2 hogs next spring!”

“U gotta watch them c-hairs!”

“Lol, tell me about it”

“Ye them goats are giving it heck! Faster than I thawt they would. But the donks are only grazing the little part of pasture that I've fenced in .... they're supposed to be great grazers of weeds and bushes also.”

“Aw man I'm sick. Had ta take my new high-schooler to Wally's for a book she needed late yesterday evening ...... something nabbed Brad Pitt. Dang, he was awesome! His spurs wuz awesome! And would'a looked awesomer dangling from my truck mirror.

R.I.P. Brad ole boy, I hope you give that murderin' critter some screamin' schyttes, er AIDES er something.

I need to get some pictures of Donald Trump, cause I don't think I have any of Brad, no good close-ups anyhow.”

“Bummer man. Believe me I know how feel. I lost Chuck Liddell the other day. I moved the fox trap down there where I found Chuck, and put him in there for bait. The next morning he was gone and the trap didn't go off. Now I'm down to Napoleon Dynamite. Hopefully some of the eggs will hatch and I'll get another too out of the deal”

“LOL...I just caught up on the farm antics...

I hate losing "special" birds. And I want goats one of these days.

The morning we were going off on vacation, three little chicks appeared trotting after the red bantam. She and another red were laying on a bunch of eggs. They seemed to be co-mothering them. I wondered if they tossed the babes out of the nesting box, since it's three feet off the ground.

I returned from 4 days vacation to two chicks. I wondered how the mums were protecting them at night, and it turns out they are not! Tonight I went out and the mums were laying on the unhatched eggs and left the chicks to fend for themselves on the ground. When I put them in with the mum hens, one of them gave me a scolding. Maybe I'll have to bring them inside if they are to live.”

“I thought "brindle" was an odd color for a coyote as well, and maybe I'm not describing it correctly - I looked up pictures, and it is the same color as some of those. I wonder if he's lone though, as he is the same one I saw before that I thought was a dog - I'd walked out to the rock wall and found Ruthie my oldest hen, and another carcass.”

“got another pig in the pig scramble. Really wanted to keep it - runt, cute, calm - but I'm working so much and just don't have stuff together, PLUS, the cost of grain is ridiculous. Sold her to a friend for their kids, so hopefully I'll get to hear about her antics. Someday though...”

“one legged rooster kicked it - the dominant rooster would hold him down while the hens pecked him...animals are rotten to each other. I felt bad. :(”

“Whoa, chickens really can be mean.

I had this broody hen so I let her sit. About a week and a half in I realized that her egg pile was growing. We get all different colors so I knew they weren't all hers. I finally caught one of the other hens kicking Magpie(broody hen) out, lay an egg, then Magpie would get back on the pile and sit. I didn't know what to do since by this time she was up to 20 eggs and I had no idea which was hers or how old any of them were. Finally she had a chick hatch out. It left the box and she followed it and abandoned the other eggs, 24 to be exact. So I took the remaining eggs and put them in the incubator. 2 days later, one of the eggs in the bator hatched out. I put the chick under the momma, hoping she would adopt it. I've done that before and it worked great. Not this time. The next morning the second chick was dead and appeared to have been pecked about the head, a lot. I guess she rejected it. I had another hatch in the bator yesterday and I don't know what to do. Should I leave it alone in my chick box, or put it with the mom and hope she adopts it?”

“Well I Put it in with mama and she seems to be accepting it. 8)”

“Ok, they're pipping like flies over here, 2 more! Magpie is doing a fine job teaching them how to eat medicated chick starter crumbles, lol”

“At least the weren't all rotten eggs (no pun intended).”

“nice that she's adopted them, but they don't need mama. This is the first time I've had chicks with a mama, they are so cute to watch running along behind her. I noticed she is not in the coop at night, she must have a secret hiding place.”

“Yes I hear ya TE. But I gladly choose to consider my wonderful and lovely Bride's maternal sensitivities. We strive to work out a compromise in these matters and it usually works out just fine. Had another successful pip today and Mama Magpie is now guarding over 5 healthy chicks. I am very thankful to have a caring partner to help me navigate through these unknown waters. I have come to rely on the fact that we will, over time and experience, coupled with mutual respect of each other's opinions, develop the best course of action in each situation. I was getting pretty discouraged there for a while but the results of the last week, with 5 strong chicks, has given me new hope that we're on the right path.”

“What ta heck are you tawkin bout? You and your wonderful and lovely Bride work out your compromises and then you do what she wants. That, coupled with mutual resect of each other's opinions, is what makes the world go round bra. Pretty simple.”

“Lol, yeah that's what I meant...”

“Yaknow tho, I meant to say "That, //pretendingly// coupled with mutual respect of each other's opinions, is what makes the world go round bra."”

“thanks for the translation ape, for a bit I wondered if strat's mate was a hen...”

“Well now hole up there twigs .... he is in Alabama after all, I cain't in all honesty say that his mate ain't a hen !”

“lol!”