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Post by macmex on Jan 5, 2023 6:36:17 GMT -6
Ron, I bet you're right. Back around 2002 we had a guinea fowl we had dubbed "Screecher Creature." He had the bad habit of roosting on top of our barn or in a tree, up about 30'. I say "bad habit" because we lived in NJ where raptors were far more aggressive than here in OK. Owls picked off any poultry roosting outdoors. Anyway, Screecher was incorrigible. One day we had a rip roaring snow storm come in overnight, blanketing the ground with nearly 2' of snow. When the sun came up, it was still snowing and sleeting and Screecher looked miserable up in that tree, but he wouldn't come down. The storm raged on for three days and Screecher wouldn't come down. I began to think he was just going to die and fall out of that tree. Finally, after three days it occurred to me that his perception of the ground might be confused, due to all the white snow. I went out and, using a snow shovel, I made a bare dirt "runway" about 50' from his tree. Sure enough, within minutes Screecher flew down and taxied to a landing, grumbling and screeching the whole time. He went and got a hearty meal and drink and seemed to recover quickly. We did lose him to an owl, a month or two later. He chose to sleep on the peak of the barn and an owl simply swooped down and carried him away.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jan 5, 2023 8:30:01 GMT -6
Reading your story about “Screecher Creature” just gave me a sudden memory of my childhood, macmex. I grew up in on the west side of a river hollow (not too near the river, toward the top of the hill). The town was to the east of us, and I remember when we’d drive home from town and be heading down the hill that led to the river, I’d always see guinea fowl up in the trees at one particular place along the route. We had chickens growing up but never guinea fowl, and I didn’t know much about them. I just have a memory of my dad telling me what they were one day when I asked about the birds up in the trees and then seeing them regularly when we’d be coming down that hill on the way home. I liked your story for itself but also for the bit of nostalgia it brought back to me.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 5, 2023 12:52:37 GMT -6
Screecher Creature was a good example of what I think might have happened to our wild goose. She can fly just fine, but for some reason she chose to walk home, honking as she went.
When I caught up to her, her feet were frozen (as frozen as a goose's feet can get anyhow). They were still operating, but there was ice stuck to her feet, so I know they were frozen, or else the snow would have melted off of them.
When I got her home, I poured a turkey roasting pan full of water for her to drink. Instead of drinking it, she sat down in it as if it were a hot bath. That seemed so counterintuitive to me at the moment, but then I stopped to realize how warm cold tap water seems when I run it over my cold fingers. The water had to be several degrees warmer than the air was that day or else it would have been ice too.
Animals are amazingly resilient. Every time I've seen water available to geese, during a snowstorm, I've seen them sitting or swimming in it. It never occurred to me until that day that any water that is still in a liquid state has to be warmer than the freezing temperatures that brought on the snow.
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Post by macmex on Jan 5, 2023 13:32:48 GMT -6
Absolutely! I remember the learning curve when we first obtained Muscovy ducks. I split an order, with a friend, from a hatchery in in PA, paying a pretty penny for 8 ducklings. Lost one or two to the heat, that first summer, because I had them penned and they couldn't get to a cooler place. For months, if not a year, I diligently herded them into a coop, every night, letting them out each morning after day break. That first winter, we had an extreme cold spell. They didn't want to go into their coop at all, instead, heading for the pond. I spent hours chasing them around, catching them and putting them into their coop. While I did give them extra straw and put up more windbreaks around their coop, they still developed frostbite. One drake lived for years afterwards, walking around on stubby feet because he lost most of his toes in that cold spell. I felt terrible about this.
The next time we had an arctic blast I left them out to go where they pleased. They divided their time between swimming in the spring fed end of the pond, where there was open water, and hiding in the barn, with our goats. Didn't have another case of frostbite after that, until last month. Then, one of the drakes came up with some frostbite. I'm pretty sure what happened was that I had four drakes (two too many) and in their competition, they drove this one poor fellow away from the warm spots. I thought the other two drakes, which came up missing, were hunkered down, elsewhere, so I fixed him for our Christmas eve supper. Then I discovered that I now had only ONE drake.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that Muscovies are smart and know where to go to shelter from extremes of temperature and weather conditions. My ducks no longer have their own coop. They just choose what out building they want to use, often spending the night at the pond. This works pretty well, in large part because my livestock guardian dogs watch over them. Without the dogs I think we'd have more predator problems.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 19, 2023 14:28:40 GMT -6
We have a roo. He’s not a full blood barred rock, but he’s not aggressive. I figured he’d be a good start for my further schooling on caring for chickens since I’m still new and have never floated a rooster in the flock. My schooling too flight the very minute we set his cage down on the ground nearby the hens. He’s fast. I know this because he took flight through a gap in the cage door. The three of us couldn’t catch him. He schooled us on how untrained chickens behave. I am absolutely embarrassed with how slow and out of shape we are. LOL
Eventually, my son put a bowl of irresistible wheat berries in his little cage sitting by the ladies tractor and shut the door on him.
I appreciate my Barred Rock ladies even more who do not struggle to run away when we corner them or when we try to pick them up. I do not look forward to this roo teaching them the art of escaping but I appreciate his glorified presence and potential hawk-thwarting abilities. The crowing has already begun and the hens better for it.
I hope to propagate quality Plymouth Barred Rocks with a quality roo in the future.
I think the world could use more of this hardy heritage breed that carried America through World War II.
I’m not real certain where to start looking for specified Rooster stock. Maybe the local 4H chapters can point me in a good direction.
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Post by macmex on Jan 20, 2023 9:03:26 GMT -6
Cackle Hatchery sells chicks. Their exhibition grade are VERY pricey, though, that's probably what I'd try for, if I was in your shoes. One has to order a minimum of 25 chicks, total, for shipping, so I'd get a couple of these (maybe three, and ask for cockerels) and fill up the rest of the order with something which won't get confused with those chicks. One of the things I'm convinced of, with chickens is that inbreeding does no harm as long as one culls substandard birds. So, to get a fantastic flock, I'd be willing to get two or three birds and breed up from there.
Another possibility would be the Barred Rock Fancier's Club of America. If you joined, you might find someone nearby that could help you get some better stock.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 20, 2023 12:59:33 GMT -6
Most excellent, sage advice. I just joined the Fancier’s club. I meant to do that before, but it escaped my memory. There’s a guy listed in Broken Arrow among its members.
George, I was wondering if you would weigh in on in-house incubation versus getting a broody hen to do the work. Just for my small op and personal use, maybe a dozen eggs or less at a time?
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Post by woodeye on Jan 20, 2023 18:00:07 GMT -6
FrostyTurnip. If you decide to go the incubator route, one like this has always worked well for me. I haven't hatched any chicks for several years, but I can say with confidence that this one is very easy to deal with. I have used the styrofoam incubators, as well as cabinet incubators...
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 20, 2023 20:45:49 GMT -6
Thanks Woodeye, you made me go and look. Life is such a pickle since we had several grand worth of tools stolen at a time when we’re actually needing to repair and build things. I guess someone who didn’t even have the tools to begin with would face the same mountain. I shouldn’t complain.
SO, that added expense. . .. but the probability of price and availability being higher and more scarce in the near future is high. I think I’ll start piling some $10 bills. Your suggestion gives me a target price of a couple hundred.
I need a hygrometer for other things and we have everything we need for a basic DIY incubator. Higher failure rates is okay since I”m practicing with a half breed roo to create some inferior broilers or egg layers. Making the kids turn eggs 5 times a day for 18 days is good discipline, no?
If I set up a stupid fish tank, would I need a 12v or 14v fan for air?
The egg cradles are only ten bucks off amazon. Bill has servos and what nots and a 3D printer. I think this might be a nifty project for me and the kiddos.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 21, 2023 8:35:35 GMT -6
When I was a kid, our Science Teacher had us turn eggs in a fish aquarium every class period for three weeks, until they hatched. I was too young at the time to take note of what she used as a heat source or what she used as a water (humidity) source? I only remember there were about a dozen eggs in an aluminum pie pan. We only had Science Class once per day, but she had six classes to teach, so I'm sure she probably did the same thing every hour.
It was pretty cool to see them hatch.
Of course, she may have 'salted' the project for our mutual success? I remember when I was teaching Science in grade school, I had my students plant beans in their little milk cartons. I had the same project going on at home, just in case any of the beans at school failed. I remember sneaking in like Santa Clause and replacing sickly bean plants more than once. One morning, when the kids came in, one of them inadvertently broke a bean plant. When I went to the back of the classroom to see what just happened, I witnessed them praying for it's healing.
After seeing that, I sure was glad I had back-up bean plants at home. When they came in the next day their little bean was 'healed'.
(It was a small, country, school. I only had 17 kids ranging in age from 11 to 19 years of age, all in one room). I had to build a bookshelf room divider in the center of the room to keep them separated and teach several different lessons at the same time, as they were all on different reading levels and different Math levels. I had basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division going on at the same time I was teaching Geometry and Algebra. (Thank goodness for those Teacher's Guides!!!)
I'm sure some second hand store somewhere has an old aquarium sitting around that they would love to get rid of. I know I have one here that I'd love to get rid off. It has been sitting around ever since the kid's lizard and pet garden snake days.
Many happy memories!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jan 21, 2023 8:56:52 GMT -6
I have very vague memories of hatching chicks both in school and at home when I was little. The only thing I picture in my mind was an old metal tub with a bowl of water and an incandescent light bulb. I’m not giving any advice or suggestions here, just reminiscing. I do remember there being X’s marked on the eggs so that we could monitor turning.
In recent years, I remember visiting a friend in San Antonio, and she had a small incubator sort of like what Woodeye pictured above but smaller, on her kitchen counter. My kids and I got to watch some of her eggs hatch one morning. That was fun.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 21, 2023 9:13:30 GMT -6
Living on a farm, watching chicks hatch never gets old, or Watching any newborn for that matter. We are blessed here each Spring with baby chicks, or baby geese, or baby deer; sometimes, all at the same time.
Even though they totally destroyed my garden and literally cost me thousands of dollars in 2022, seeing Stanley bring home twins last Spring was a very special blessing indeed.
I'll sure be glad when I get paid on all the seeds that Hank and I shelled out last Autumn. I really, really, need to be working on that new deer fence.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 21, 2023 12:10:08 GMT -6
Ron, you should raise your price. It’s normal for the consumer to compare the contract prices versus the real price direct from mfg or provider.
Did you know that higher prices spur spending?
When we had the bindery, we bound the college students thesis and dissertations by OSU students. Tried to sell a bundle at a cheap price. Mind you, they were paying as much as $150 PER BOOK from other binders. Since we were nearby the college, we got the bulk of them and charged $50 PER BOOK. A lot of these were on referral by the superiors at the college and so they thought they were getting a good price by going through the college even though a walk in was the same price. With exception to handling the type of paper they required them to use (we couldn’t mend mistakes on this paper, I forget what type of paper it was but it was thin and somewhat transparent) binding a dissertation was no harder or different than binding the library books where they paid mere nickels for us to do and those were harder because we broke down the old books before binding. New books are clean, smooth and quick to do.
I always hated this price gouging. Binding dissertations was easy work. So, one day I tried to sell a bundle at $20 PER BOOK. Students were required to have one or two books bound to distribute their submissions but they always ordered more, one or two for themselves and more for family members. We were semi automated so the more books, the easier to produce because time is spent in setting up the run, no matter how many books. The more books, the more money per widget. During the time of my ad for a sale price on bundles, I actually got a call from someone who acted suspicious about these prices listed in the ad. He asked what type of material we used, etc. And we had zero takers. In fact, we didn’t see a dissertation for months after that.
It backfired! Ultimately, I raised the price to $75.00 PER BOOK for walk ins to match our competitor! Ultimately, when they got to our counter “Oh! You’re from OSU?! You get a discount and your books are only $50.” this worked really well as word spread.
So I looked up the psychology behind this and marketers know that lower prices to many consumers automatically means inferior products, etc., even if evidence was presented of its quality.
So stupid, but a very real economic behavior. These kids wanted to pay a higher price, because it’s extremely important to them even if its the same quality and will just end up gathering dust on a shelf.
Mind boggling. I don’t know anything about selling seeds, though. The psychology remains, still.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 21, 2023 21:30:49 GMT -6
Frosty,
That was a very good read. I appreciate the time you took to put that together. What you say is very true but still makes no sense to me. I used to sell fresh, organic, produce at a local health food store. When sales were slow, the owner told me, "If it's not selling, raise the price!" That was the craziest thing I'd ever heard but it really worked. The trouble was, I had too much produce to get rid of and when the price was higher, they bought less quantity, but that was alright. I still made the same amount of money for less product and just donated the surplus to a local nursing home, a crisis center, and a homeless shelter.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 25, 2023 18:52:17 GMT -6
This was an interesting video about how to make a chicken waterer that shouldn't freeze during moderately cold weather (mid-twenties, to high-teens probably).
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